GOVERNMENT,MARKET AND COMMUNITY IN URBAN SOLID WASTE 277
rather than regulating the private sector in such a way that entrepreneurs are inclined
to discontinue their business.
At the same time, and despite the enthusiasm among many academics and
policy-makers about the potential of community involvement in urban governance
and environmental management (Mitlin, 2001; Hardoy et al., 2001), CBOs are not
automatically perceived as potential partners by local governments. Although there
are many examples of community action in SWM in our two cases, and many positive
aspects of community involvement (participation in clean-ups, organizing for political
pressure, community-based projects providing work to unemployed youngsters) most
of the time it concerns one-time initiatives or actions that are strictly confined to
neighbourhood level or both. Linking up with the local authorities is difficult. In
Nairobi ‘collaboration’ with CBOs is restricted to tolerance of some international
donor action and an occasional clean-up campaign. Decisive hindrances are that many
CBOs operate in unrecognised slums and that their interventions do not always satisfy
existing standards. In Hyderabad official attitudes seem to be somewhat more posi-
tive. The MCH was willing to collaborate with CBOs at neighbourhood level through
its Voluntary Garbage Disposal Scheme (which also indirectly engaged them with a
sizeable group of waste pickers). However, the support was not only on a one-off basis
(providing a tricycle free of charge), it also suffered from a middle-class bias. In the
slum areas the VGDS could only be implemented thanks to donor activism. Our
findings corroborate conclusions drawn elsewhere about the ponderous relationships
between CBOs and local authorities in urban environmental management (Lee, 1998;
Hordijk, 2000). Part of the explanation probably lies in the lack of coordination within
the SWM system by local authorities, notably the bias towards effective and efficient
collection of waste and the neglect of recycling and reuse. If more emphasis was put
on the latter aspects, collaboration with the community (and the informal private
sector) would probably receive higher priority.
However, the potential of community action should not be exaggerated. Our two cases
show that such action often depends on NGO support and/or the devotion of
un(der)paid workers, both of which constitute uncertain (non-structural) elements.
This was particularly true for the community composting initiatives in both cities.
The comparative strength of entrepreneurs and residents in dealing with the authorities
partly depends on their level of organisation (Schenk, Baud and Bhuvaneshwari,
1998). Most private sector collection enterprises in our study are self-employed small
or micro-business units, each lacking the power to put pressure on governments (Haan
et al., 1998). In Hyderabad, the level of organisation among collection enterprises was
better than in Nairobi. This resulted in greater effectiveness in challenging the author-
ities (cf. the strategy to manipulate bids prior to the adoption of the unit system) or in
negotiating with them (presenting demands). Similarly, comparatively well-organized
middle-class communities managed to win official support for the upgrading of the