MARKETS,PARTNERSHIPS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 17
domains within the total range of activities constituting SWM, as parts of a whole
system, something, which to our knowledge, has seldom been done. The advantages
of doing so is that an analysis can be made of how the different domains affect each
other, and what conflicts and trade-offs exist between improvements in the activities
in the various domains. The rationale was that in these domains the important param-
eters considered in the overall research question (social, economic and environmental
aspects) could be found, so that an integrated assessment of contributions to sustain-
able development could be made. The domains chosen are:
- collection and transportation, and privatisation initiatives in this area;
- collection, trade and recycling of inorganic wastes; and
- reuse and diversion of organic materials.
The combination of criteria embodied in the concept of sustainable development as it
pertains to SWM, leads to conflicts and trade-offs when improvements in the different
domains are attempted. For instance, providing safe and healthy employment
increases costs for either local government or private sector employers This may seem
to conflict with the idea of reducing costs for SWM activities. However, making
explicit the activities of SWM according to operational aspects of sustainable devel-
opment, allows policy makers, CBOs, and NGOs, to weigh the possible outcomes
according to their own preferences, and to make informed choices on that basis. These
choices can be political; but the advantage is that this method of analysis allows the
choices to be assessed in terms of their contributions (or lack of them) to aspects of
sustainable development. At the moment, this is possible in an empirically qualitative
fashion, not quantitatively. The contribution to enabling strategies lies in the potential
for practitioners and researchers to make explicit the trade-offs between the different
aspects of SWM, when specific choices are made.
The questions raised have been studied by carrying out in-depth comparative case
studies in two cities: Hyderabad, India and Nairobi, Kenya. Both cities share a
common heritage in terms of British colonial administration, but currently differ a
great deal in terms of the strength of local government interventions. They differ in
size, with the population of Hydrabad being more than twice as large as the population
of Nairobi. The population of the capital city Hyderabad is around 4.2 million
people^15 (http://travel.indiamart.com/hyderabad/index.html) and the capital city
Nairobi counts around 2.14 million people (Republic of Kenya, 2001). The advantage
of comparative case studies is that the contrasts found, can highlight the diversity of
situations as well as show similarities, which is not possible in a single case.
- For example, there is a great deal of literature on the technical aspects of SWM, and on the chemical
hazards involved in unsafe disposal of solid wastes (the journal Resources, Recovery, and Recycling is
an important source for this kind of literature). - As per 2001 census, the population of Hyderabad Metropolitan Area (including the nine municipali-
ties around it) was about 6.5 million.