Solid Waste Management and Recycling

FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

At IIED, Dr. David Satterthwaite and Dr. Cecilia Tacoli provided generous hospitality

for two workshops and incisive comments on discussions and earlier versions of the

manuscript, the latter contributing a background paper on rural-urban interactions.

They also generously provided for the time contributed by Chris Furedy to the

research project. The Centre for Economic and Social Studies, under the guidance of

Dr. Mahendra Dev, provided for the time spent by Dr.S. Galab and Dr. S. Sudahkar

Reddy on the field studies done inside and around Hyderabad with their teams, and

their reports to the project team. The team in Kenya consisted of people from the

School of Environmental Studies, Moi University and researchers already working

with staff from AGIDS at the University of Amsterdam. Despite the changing compo-

sition of the team, Prof. Theo Davies as coordinator and Anne Karanja and Dr. Moses

Ikiara completed the fieldstudies with dedication, formed an integral part of the

discussions at the workshops throughout the project, and contributed the chapters

found here.

Several contributions were also made by others to the project: Dr. M. Put contributed

an interesting commissioned paper on the use of different types of organic manure –

including urban solid waste – by farmers in areas around Hyderabad, India, broad-

ening our understanding of the ways in which urban-rural links develop and wane.

Anne Karanja wrote a working paper on the informal recycling sector in Nairobi, on

the basis of her fieldwork studies for her Ph.D., which illustrated the differences in

depth and complexity of the Kenyan and Indian situations. Erwin Koster of the

University of Amsterdam carried out a field study on urban farmers in Nairobi,

complementary to the work in India, in order to improve our understanding of the

ways in which farmers use organic manure and waste materials in their farming strat-

egies. Finally, Dr. Johan Berkhout carried out a transect study in Nairobi, pinpointing

geographically areas of activities in SWM within the urban system, laid down in a

CD-Rom. R. Dhanalakshmi checked recent elements concerning community-based

initiatives in Hyderabad for finalization of the manuscript.

Editing the final manuscript is a process in itself, and I would like to thank my

co-editors for the generous amounts of time they made available to bring the manu-

script to completion. Particularly, I would like to thank Dr. Johan Post, who provided

the main liaison with the publisher and the layout-editor Anne van der Zwalmen

during this process. Finally, the assistance of the University of Amsterdam project

bureau was invaluable in guiding me through the maze of administrative and financial

reporting throughout the project period. Particular thanks goes to Harry van Kesteren,

who remained unruffled throughout and coordinated with his financial counterparts

from the other contributing institutions, and the desk officers from the European

Union, who provided backstopping for this project.

Isa Baud

Project Coordinator

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July 2003