Waste management in developing countries

10a Using datasets to assess causes of poor urban waste management in developing countries

Many cities in low- and middle-income countries experience problems in providing good solid waste management (SWM) services to their citizens. It looks like population growth rates, urbanization rates, GDP, governance quality, corruption and decentralization are factors that are correlated or even causally related to poor SWM performance. You are going to look for international datasets that may be useful in statistically analyzing the relevance of these and other factors. And of course, you are going to perform this analysis.

Contact: Dr. Ansje Lohr

10b City governance and waste management in developing countries

Cities have the obligation to provide city cleaning and waste collection services to their citizens. In low- and middle-income countries poor governance schemes may be at the root of poor performance on these services. How do characteristics of governance, like leadership, separation of responsibilities, accountability, decentralization, privatization, fiscal instruments and adaptive capacities, play a role in this interaction. Your project will comprise an analysis of literature in this field. Based on this, you are expected to perform interviews with stakeholders in at least 3 cities in order to evaluate your findings. Your thesis should deliver a qualitative, and ideally also quantitative, assessment of the influence of the investigated governance characteristics.

Contact: Dr. Ansje Lohr