MARKETS,PARTNERSHIPS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 5
to minimise the amount of waste left for final, safe disposal (OECD, 1972; cf. de Jong,
1999).
The perspective giving priority to issues of public health has remained the dominant
one until today in developing countries. However, there is more attention of how to
deal with the growing costs of managing larger waste flows. Measures taken into
account include privatisation and the introduction of cost recovery mechanisms. How
such measures should be integrated into a perspective on sustainable development has
remained a largely theoretical discussion, in which the public sector has little interest.
In international discussions on sustainable development, developing countries have
made it abundantly clear that environmental policies should reflect their own priorities
and not curtail their legitimate desire for economic growth. They have given priority
to issues of pollution (the so-called ‘brown agenda’) with a predominantly urban focus
(UNCHS, 1996), (many of which were already included on their usual agenda) and
shifted the environmental focus away from issues of natural resource depletion and
resource management^6. The brown agenda is defined as
‘... the immediate and most critical environmental problems which incur the heaviest
costs on current generations, particularly the urban poor in terms of poor health, low
productivity and reduced income and quality of life: lack of safe drinking water, sanita-
tion and drainage, inadequate solid and hazardous waste management, uncontrolled
emissions from factories, cars and low grade domestic fuels, accidents linked to conges-
tion and crowding, and the occupation of environmentally hazard-prone lands, as well as
the interrelationships between these problems’ (Bartone et al., 1994: 5)The focus on pollution problems carries implicitly a conception of sustainable devel-
opment, which combines environmental aspects with attempts to meet human needs
(cf. McGranahan and Satterthwaite, 2000; Drakakis-Smith, 1995). In this perspective,
environmental issues are considered in conjunction with quality of life improvements
in urban areas, obtained through the changes in the institutional arrangements influ-
encing them. Studies carried out within this framework usually deal with the ways in
which various actors contribute to improve environmental conditions as well as
increase the effectiveness of urban livelihood strategies (Furedy, 1992, 1997;
Pacheco, 1992; Bose and Blore, 1993; Huysman, 1994; Baud and Schenk, 1994).
Although the further emphasis on the ‘green’ agenda – of preventing waste generation
and reducing waste flows – is still weak in current policy perspectives in developing
countries, the increases in waste flows make it imperative to focus more attention on
this problem as well in the future.
- i.e. the prime environmental worries in the North.