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To Market, to Market...Is there a more ubiquitous entrepreneur than the street trader? From neglect to downright violence they often have a raw deal, yet they perform a vital role both economically and sociologically, argues Steve Balkin, who has even set up a website to monitor what is happening worldwide p2.
Streetlife They have been playing a key role for years - how best to build on that role, protect them and solve some of the negative aspects - Part 1 of a 2 part special on the role of microentrepreneurs and municipal waste management p4
All you need is Trust? Clusters, districts, and networks - what's the difference, and what the key elements that really make a cluster succeed rather than not? P6
Women's Work The ILO South Asia project has produced a series of case-studies. The Sri Lankan one highlights just how many factors both positive and negative impinge on women's enterprise as well as providing partial answers to whether it is better to help individuals or groups p10
Networks Your help will be invaluable in providing information on where street markets are threatened or where traders are facing clampdowns - for some locations your vital info may be the only source p3
Newsbriefs p8
Journal Watch Home-based workers - exploited individuals or valid targets for microenterprise assistance? They are often both, argues a new articles, and dichotomizing them obfuscates the issues and crucially delays helping them. Plus the oft neglected issue of the role of the informal sector and economic growth - are they really negatively related, or is it those old jokers reverse causation or spurious correlation - two analysts differ p 12
Noticeboard p16
Street Life: There is a key role for microenterprises in one of the most challenging and urgent problems facing many cities. A programme currently underway seeks to mobilise them more efficiently in what many of them have involved in for many years
Part I of a two-part special Streetlife: Managing municipal solid waste is a major concern all over the world, but particularly in the cities of low-income countries which generate some forty percent of the world's total. As population growth has continued, largely unabated in many places, and as cities have continued to expand, often sprawling unchecked and unplanned, the problem has threatened to overwhelm many municipalities. Absorbing up to a half of some municipal budgets, only around a third of the waste may be collected, and of this, a minute proportion, perhaps less than five percent, is properly disposed of. All this adds up to serious problems from the point of view of public health, the environment and economic growth - including that potential money spinner tourism.
The existing situation, whereby the provision of services to deal with problems such as these has remained the domain of the public sector was clearly not adequate and in 1994 a joint initiative between the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the multi-donor Urban Management Programme (UMP) was initiated, to address these problems, particularly in low-income countries. A collaborative workshop a year later held at Ittingen, considered that a salient issue was that of the continuing collaboration of both private and public sectors as a key to improving the management of Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) in developing countries. This in turn led to a workshop that focussed specifically on public and private partnerships, and specifically, sustainable ones.
Rather than seeing private sector involvement as a panacea, the conclusion of this later workshop was that MSWM remains a public sector responsibility; the role of the former is that of taking the role of a proven strategy with the potential for ensuring efficient delivery of these serves, in attracting additional investment, and optimising the role of the public sector. Ironically, the involvement of the private sector means that there is an even stronger role for the public sector - in maintaining its sovereign responsibilities of strategic planning, in regulation, and in setting up the enabling environment for sustainable partnerships.
But what seemed to be lacking were tools for decision makers involved in this area, and the meeting recommended a comprehensive package of operational and promotional tools be elaborated in order to guide and enhance public and private sector partnerships.
As part of and logically within this broader picture, the issue of what role microenterprises and the informal sector could play emerged as a major area of focus, had already come to the fore at the Ittingen meeting but was specifically highlighted later that year, a natural component of the broader emphasis on public private partnership in MSWM in general.
Some sixty participants including representatives of micro and small enterprises as well as those involved professionally in this sector from a broad range of regions - Africa, the Arab States, Asia- Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean exchanged information, and discussed ways to promote learning on better strategies for enhancing the potential of micro and small-scale enterprises in the delivery of MSWM.
The workshop, it is believed, provided state of the art global information on the involvement of this sector in MSWM, and a set of principles now forms the basis for seeking to expand that involvement in what is seen as a major institutional reform that has prospects for promoting indigenous solutions to the waste management in many developing countries.
What can microenterprises do?
There seems little disagreement that both micro and small-scale enterprises can indeed effectively contribute to resolving the shortage in solid waste service delivery, particularly in low-income urban areas. In fact, for over a decade a veritable army of both informal and formal micro and small-scale enterprises have been playing a significant role in the delivery of MSWM. While there has typically been little official recognition, they have busied themselves the areas of waste collection, recycling and re-use of waste materials, and all along its cycle, from storage to disposal. Apart from the direct contribution to at least in some way addressing this massive problem, these workers, in turn, have been provided opportunities for mitigating some of the problems of unemployment and poverty.
All in the garden has not been rosy, however. While this sector has made very positive contributions in the areas of drainage, waste collection, and in sewerage provision and maintenance, as well as in the promotion of conservation and sustainable resource use through their activities in recycling and collecting, there have been problems. One of these has been the pollution from small industrial enterprises for example dying operations, tanneries, automobile repair, dry cleaning, among others.
Yet despite these problems, the role of the microenterprise and small-scale sector is seen as having great potential to be effective particularly where community relations are important, and where direct user charges may be required. They can also facilitate upgrading the status, earnings and working conditions for waste pickers and recyclers, and, in addition to the employment generation and poverty alleviation role already note, contribute to a healthy and sustainable environment.
Cases in point
So far the programme has drawn on case-studies of activities in very different regions in order to try and elucidate just what can be achieved in this area, and what is hampering greater progress and participation.
In Quezon City, Manila in the Philippines, a vast area about a quarter that of Metro Manila, Payatas represents a densely populated and poor Barangay. The site of the city's solid waste disposal for over twenty years it is also the city's main dumping ground for garbage. This site has provided home and livelihood to around 4,000 scavenger families. Many women have been engaged in waste recycling microenterprise activities.
In Dakar, Senegal, after decades of ineffectual MSWM programmes a new system was introduced in 1994. After two years, waste collection coverage has improved to 75 percent using a system of community microenterprises who handle community organisation for pre-collection and street and drain cleansing and interact with local private small transport enterprises. Other case-studies of activities taking place in Burkina Faso, Peru, Ecuador, Yemen and in Egypt among others have been examined for the lessons that they can offer and for what they indicate about the challenges that face existing participants, and attempts to expand their role. Some of these are specific to the particular milieu and others more general.
For the contribution of micro and small-scale enterprises to be effective various constraints have been identified, and need to be addressed. Issues such as legitimisation and contractual arrangements, capital finance and cost recovery, capacity building in technical skills, as well as citizen responsibility and public cooperation seem to be among the most important. The issue of an enabling environment so that scaling-up operations are possible has also been identified as a crucial one.
Areas that have been explored with respect to these main concerns include, inter alia, regarding the need to obtain public cooperation with services - what can be done when people are not willing to pay for services? What in fact are the key issues that would enable MSEs to cover their costs? - what role could sponsorship play, what could public awareness campaigns achieve in terms of creating demand? What are the key isues that would enable them to obtain investment capital? - Is there in fact a need for capital and investment, should MSE's investment be small and what about the need to look for technical innovations?
In terms of more general issues, there are questions related to What is preferable, formal or informal micro and small-scale enterprises? How to ensure the fair payment of a fee for the services delivered by MSEs? How to bill citizens? How should scavengers be protected - how best to protect and monitor them since scavengers are often exploited by dealers they sell to. What about ensuring reliability of service? How can recycling costs be reduced? What about ensuring against excessive pricing?
While not claiming to have found definitive answers to these and many other conundrums, some of the dimensions of the problems have at least begun to be identified, and solutions offered. These are considered in Part II.
The workshop provided state of the art global information on the involvement of the microenterprise sector in municipal solid waste management - which it is hoped will expand in what is seen as a major institutional reform that has prospects for promoting indigenous solutions to the waste management in many developing countries
There are a myriad of questions to answer such as - Are formal or informal micro and small-scale enterprises preferable? How can fair payment of a fee for the services delivered by MSEs be ensured? How can scavengers be protected when they are so often exploited by dealers they sell to?
'Micro and Small Enterprises Involvement in Municipal Solid Waste Management in Developing Countries', Workshop Report, by A Brown and J Chriten is available from SKAT - the Swiss Centre for Development Cooperation in Technology and Management. For details of this and other SKAT publications, please contact: SKAT directly if you are in Switzerland at Vadianstrasse 42, CH-9000 St Gallen, Tel + 41 71 228 54 54 Fax + 41 71 228 54 55, else Intermediate Technology Publications, 103-105 Southampton Row, London WC1B 4HH, UK Tel + 44 171 436 9761, Fax + 44 171 436 2013, email <itpubs@gn.apc.org>
For more information about Microenterprise News, contact Gwenda Brophy, Editor, 6 Mosslea Road, Bromley Kent BR2 9PS, UK. Tel/Fax 0181 460 2280. email<mentnews@netcomuk.co.uk> or <gbrophy@netcomuk.co.uk>