4. Results and Lessons Learned
Results
The waste dumped for municipal collection was reduced by about 30%, moreover dumping of waste in public areas was reduced, with the primary collection points on road sides removed.
The urban local authorities realized the importance of sharing responsibilities with other partners in the city including the urban poor, to solve the municipal solid waste management problems more effectively. The process to set up and manage the recycling Center in Badowita, the introduction of home composting, and the production of biogas also changed their attitudes towards solid waste management.
Demonstration projects in Kotte influenced the Government’s first National Strategy for Solid Waste Management, resulting in Sri Lanka’s first integrated (Kotte) Solid Waste Management (SWM) Strategy being adopted through Council resolution (2005)
Municipal Councils have integrated SCP initiated SWM strategies and Environmental Planning and Management (EPM) participatory mechanisms into their development plans and municipal budgets, with Colombo’s Green Star Settlements project now an integral part of the public health plan and budget, and the Kotte Municipal Counci (KMC) and Dehiwala Municipal Council (DMMC) experience in running recycling centers being replicated in other locations through municipal budget allocations. Financed by the Municipal budget, home level composting is also being up-scaled in KMC.
The working group mechanism proved to be a very effective tool to develop Municipal issue-specific databases, empower Community Developemnt Committeesand NGOs, whilst also attracting private sector involvement in the process of city management. Whilst public private partnerships was not a new concept for Colombo Municipal Council when the project started, the working groups mechanism helped to galvanize Public Private Partnerships (PPP) initiatives in the other Municipal Councils.
Lessons Learned
City Profiles must be widely circulated as a proven tool for stakeholder mobilization and city investment planning. City profiles should be prepared for each local authority to maximize the sense of ownership in the participatory process of database information gathering and validation at the City Council level. To the best possible extent, these Profiles should contain disaggregated data to explain intra-city disparities and distortions in basic urban services, environment and poverty conditions, as well as gender aspects.
The involvement of municipal technical officers during action planning is extremely important to ensure technical feasibility of the proposed action, and to ensure ownership and support of their departments in project implementation. Plans based on community wisdom assure sustenance, Community Action Planning proved to be the key to the success of most Demonstration Projects.
The partnership approach adopted for urban waste management involving the municipality, traders, NGOs, ITDG, CDC, and a beneficiary group could be replicated successfully elsewhere. This was a quite new practice when compared to the traditionally practiced municipality dominated process, which tends to be indifferent to resource recovery of municipal waste and responsibility sharing.
The demonstration projects were very successful as promoters of new ideas to solve urban problems, but must employ simple technologies, promote community participation and encourage cost recovery to the greatest possible extent.
The local authority must be fully responsible for implementation of demonstration projects, as it is the municipality that needs to learn the lessons for eventual incorporation, integration and institutionalization into their policies, programmes and institutional structures.
