THE STRATEGIC PLANNING GUIDE FOR

SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT –

AN INTERACTIVE TOOLKIT FOR
ENVIRONMENTALLY DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES

A.READ AND D. WILSON

Environmental Resources Management (ERM), Eaton House, Wallbrook Court,
North Hinksey Lane, Oxford, OX2 0QS, UK.

SUMMARY: Planning for municipal solid waste management (MSWM) has been recognised for
many years as necessary if the effectiveness of service provision is to be improved. ERM were
commissioned in 1997 to prepare the Strategic Planning Guide for Municipal Solid Waste
Management. The specific focus was on large cities in low-income countries, but the Planning
Guide has wide applicability and will be of interest and use to all involved in planning for
Municipal Solid Waste Management. The Planning Guide is structured around the seven step
planning methodology. This approach is intended to help the user to visualise and logically ‘walk
through’ the process of strategic MSWM planning. The process is an interactive one, in which all
of the major stakeholders need to be actively involved. The Planning Guide actively promotes
participatory planning involving a series of debates, discussions and informed consultations.
This is often best achieved through a structured programme designed to ensure that key
stakeholders drive the strategic planning process, have sufficient time to reach consensus and
feel ownership of its outcomes. The presentation will give an overview of the need to
strategically plan for solid waste management in environmentally developing locations, using
extensive case studies of where the guide has been used or adopted.

1. INTRODUCTION

Planning for municipal solid waste management (MSWM) has been recognised for many years
as necessary if the effectiveness of service provision is to be improved. We have now reached
the point where there is general consensus that waste management, and planning for waste
management, is no longer primarily a technical issue. The technology driven and
bureaucratically implemented approach has singularly failed to solve the waste management
crisis, particularly in the major cities of low and middle-income countries.
An example comes from a major Asian city. All stakeholders agree that solid waste
management is the major priority facing the City, as the existing open dumps are not only

Proceedings Sardinia 2003, Ninth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium
S. Margherita di Pula, Cagliari, Italy; 6 - 10 October 2003
 2003 by CISA, Environmental Sanitary Engineering Centre, Italy
causing environmental and public health problems, but space is running out and the public is
(rightly) not prepared to accept new dump sites (Johannessen and Boyer, 1999).
The municipalities have the choice of two evils, either the waste is left uncollected or
unsatisfactory dumps are used (see Figure 1). Despite all this, a technically-driven donor-
assisted project to develop a new landfill to Western standards was abandoned after 8 years, due,
inter alia, to a lack of consensus as to the best way forward (landfill versus a ‘magic technology’
versus ‘zero waste’ - i.e. recycle and compost everything, so that no waste remains for landfill);
local opposition to the selected site; differences between the various municipalities; local party
politics, etc. So the status quo remains and all the waste continues to be dumped.
The alternative, an integrated approach to waste management, was developed at the first
meeting in Ittingen in 1995 of the Collaborative Working Group on Solid Waste Management in
Middle- and Low-Income Countries (CWG), comprising a number of international donor
agencies active in this field (Schubeler, 1996). This group recognised the need for institutional
development, funding and training to help underpin appropriate technological developments.
This is represented in Figure 2.
This integrated framework (concept) is structured along three main dimensions:
• Who are the main public and private sector actors concerned with MSWM as service
providers, users, regulators and facilitators; what are their respective interests and
capacities?
• What is the scope of MSWM; what functions, tasks and activities are involved?
• How should strategies for MSWM be conceived; what specific objectives and issues
does it pursue and what issues must be addressed regarding the main strategic aspects?

Figure 1. Poorly Operated Asian Dumpsite (personal photo).

Figure 2. Policy Support for More Sustainable Waste Management (Wilson et al 2001).

One of the other outputs of the Collaborative Working Group was the identification of a number
of areas where specific guidance was needed to assist in the improvement and development of
MSWM, with specific focus on low-income countries (Wilson et al, 2001). These included
development of decision maker’s and technical guides to sanitary landfill, composting and
incineration and a guidance pack on private sector participation in MSWM. These included:
• the Strategic Planning Guide for Municipal Solid Waste Management (Wilson,
Whiteman and Tormin, 2000);
• a Decision-Maker’s Guide to Sanitary Landfill (Rushbrook and Pugh, 1999);
• a Manual for Micro-Enterprise Development in solid waste management (Haan, et al
1998; Arroyo et al., 1999); and
• a Guidance Pack for Private Sector Participation in MSWM (Cointreau-Levine,
Gopalan and Coad, 2000).

2. THE STRATEGIC PLANNING GUIDE

2.1 Context
Environmental Resources Management were commissioned in 1997 to prepare the Strategic
Planning Guide for Municipal Solid Waste Management. The specific focus was on large cities
in low-income countries, but the Planning Guide has wide applicability and will be of interest
and use to all involved in planning for MSWM.
Key stages in the development of the Planning Guide include;
 • the preliminary Draft Planning Guide was peer reviewed at an international workshop
in Bangladesh in October 1997.
• the Planning Guide was published by the World Bank as a draft in February 1998, and
distributed to interested parties around the world.
• The Planning Guide was formally tested in two locations, one in the cities of Ha Long
and Cam Pha in Vietnam by ERM, and the other in Lima, Peru by the local NGO
Alternativa, leading to significant strengthening of the Guide in particular relating to
how to secure and manage participation of stakeholders during the planning process.
• the feedback from the two-year testing period has been incorporated in the final
Planning Guide, which was launched as a limited edition CD at an international
workshop and meeting of the CWG in Manila in September 2000. The final CD
version, which includes a library of more than a dozen other CWG publications (see
bibliography), was published in February 2001.

2.2 Steps in the Strategic Planning Process

The Planning Guide is structured around a seven step planning methodology. This approach is
intended to help the user to visualise and logically ‘walk through’ the process of strategic
MSWM planning. The process is an interactive one, in which all of the major stakeholders need
to be actively involved. The Planning Guide actively promotes participatory planning involving
a series of debates, discussions and informed consultations. This is often best achieved through a
structured programme designed to ensure that key stakeholders drive the strategic planning
process, have sufficient time to reach consensus and feel ownership of its outcomes. The
integration of a participatory workshop programme with the seven step strategic planning
methodology is shown in Figure 3.
One of the major methodological issues emphasised in the Strategic Planning Guide is the
need to prepare a Strategic Plan in two distinct stages, the `Strategy’ and the `Action Plan’. This
places focus on securing participation of key stakeholders in defining the framework of
principles, or `Strategy’, leaving the definition of facilities and management methods (the
‘Action Plan’) to be carried out subsequent to the initial political decision-making step. The
seven ‘process’ steps in the strategic planning methodology are summarised as follows.
• Step 1 - Mobilising the Planning Process is concerned with how to get started with the
strategic planning process. Guidance is structured into two areas, the ‘political’
mobilising support and the ‘functional’ organising the work.
• Step 2 - Defining the Baseline is focused on understanding the baseline situation and
likely future requirements of MSWM in the city or region. Outputs from Step 2 are
presented at two stages. A baseline study or audit of MSWM in the city is prepared in
time to allow key issues to be defined in Step 3. In parallel to the development of the
strategy and action plan (Steps 5 and 6), data gathering also continues so as to provide
more detailed information as and when it is required.
• Step 3 - Establishing the Strategic Planning Framework, covers the range of issues
that need to be established at the outset of the planning process. This will culminate
with the definition of key issues, of service levels required and of the objectives and
targets for the strategic plan.
• Step 4 - Identifying and Evaluating Options is in many ways the core of the planning
process. Options feed in both to the strategy in Step 5 and the action plan in Step 6.
These are referred to as the `content’ steps of the Planning Guide.
• Step 5 - Developing the Strategy, or the long-term vision of how MSWM should be
developed in the city or region. For each of the five content areas (see below), the
 strategy will set out a common framework which has been agreed by all key
stakeholders and will serve as the basis for preparation of the more detailed action
plan.
• Step 6 - Preparing the Action Plan is aimed at turning the vision of the Strategy into
practical reality. The action plan will involve detailed evaluation and selection of the
precise options to be pursued in each of the five ‘content areas’. The outputs will
include an action plan over five years, and immediate action plan over perhaps two
years and an investment plan.
• Step 7 - Implementing the Strategic Plan. Strategic planning for MSWM is not an end
in itself - the agreed plan must be effectively implemented. Step 7 addresses three
complementary aspects, moving from planning to implementation, revising and
updating the plan and monitoring of performance.

Strategic Waste Management Planning

Mobilise the Planning Process

Define Baseline

Inception Workshops
Establish Strategic
Planning Framework
Strategy
Waste Waste
Institutional
Collection & Treatment &
Framework
Identify and Evaluate Recycling Disposal
Options
Public
Financial
Awareness &
Stability
Participation

Develop Strategy
Strategy Workshop

Prepare Action Plan

Action Planning Workshops

Mobilise the Planning Process

Figure 3. The 7-stage process and participative planning workshops (Wilson et al, 2001).
One point is worth emphasising. Both the public and many other stakeholders in MSWM are
likely to regard municipal authorities as part of the problem in MSWM, as well as part of the
solution. It is thus important that the authorities establish credibility during the planning process
by showing their commitment to action through the realisation of early improvements on the
ground. Relatively small, simple and low cost measures can be implemented to raise the profile
of waste management and demonstrate the commitment of the municipality to improving its
services (Thurgood, 1998).
For example, in St Lucia in the eastern Caribbean, under a project sponsored by the UK
Department for International Development (DFID), emphasis was placed on demonstrating
short-term improvements in both collection and disposal. Existing waste disposal sites were
upgraded, through re-contracting operations (using for the first time an open, transparent and
accountable process), carrying out targeted civil works, licensing waste pickers and enforcing
higher standards on the ground, which led to a significant reduction in environmental health
impacts from the sites. A similar approach was adopted to waste collection, with equally
impressive results including a significant reduction in littering, illegal dump sites and abandoned
vehicles (see Figure 4).
These highly visible improvements also strengthened the capacity of the public authority to
regulate/control waste management, enabled them to obtain an 80%+ ‘approval rating’ in a
recent consumer survey and, perhaps surprisingly, resulted in an overall reduction in the cost of
waste collection and disposal. The short-term improvements will also facilitate the
implementation of the longer-term plans, where the significant improvement in standards will
inevitably increase (or perhaps require for the first time) direct user charges. All this was
achieved with a very limited amount of local financial resources, and thanks to the dedicated and
skilful efforts of the Government of St Lucia, its Solid Waste Management Authority, and the
Technical Co-operation Officer assigned by DFID.

Figure 4. Landfill Improvements in St. Lucia (personal photo).

2.3 Content Steps
As noted above, Step 4 in the strategic planning process is aimed at identifying and evaluating
the practical options (or alternative solutions) available for addressing each of the component
parts for the overall MSWM system (see Figure 5). As emphasised earlier, MSWM must be
viewed as an integrated whole, and the identification here of five sub-steps is simply a method to
make it easier to understand, analyse and make strategic planning decisions concerning the
overall MSWM system. The five sub-steps may be summarised as follows.
• Step 4A - Institutional Framework focuses on the need for effective organisation and
management to sustain a proper MSWM system. In planning improvements, attention
needs to be placed on ensuring that institutional responsibilities are clearly defined,
and that institutions are both sufficiently resourced and accountable for their
performance. This step also includes a discussion of the opportunities for private
sector participation.
• Step 4B - Waste Collection and Recycling is mainly technical in focus, but also
provides guidance on some of the ‘software’ issues influencing standards and
coverage of waste collection services. The step also stresses the need to build on the
existing informal recycling systems, which exist in many major cities of low-income
countries, and search for opportunities for micro-enterprise and community
involvement in both primary collection and recycling.
• Step 4C - Waste Treatment and Disposal is again mainly technical in focus. Emphasis
is placed on the need to phase out uncontrolled dumping and to institute
environmentally sound disposal practices in parallel to a focus on reducing waste
quantities, increasing recycling and developing environmentally sound treatment
methods as an alternative to final disposal. This stepwise development of standards
has been mirrored in most high-income countries, and accurately reflects the
progressive development of waste management in Hong Kong over the last 20 years.
• Step 4D - Financial Sustainability highlights the need for effective financial
management as a critical element of sustainable waste management. The step is
divided into three parts, focusing on the financial policy framework, on economic
analysis of alternative options and on financial assessment of the strategic plan. A key
focus here is on the need to collect a greater proportion of revenue from the
‘customers’ of the municipal waste service, i.e. households, businesses, industry and
institutions.
• Step 4E- Public Awareness and Participation outlines a range of ideas and options for
improving levels of public awareness of waste related issues and public participation
in improving MSWM practices. It emphasises the importance of public awareness
and participation in driving the cultural changes required (both on the streets, and
within public administrations) to achieve higher standards.
A wide range of ‘Planning Tools’ are available as annexes within the Strategic Planning Guide
(see the reference list). These relate to specific issues raised in the main text, and provide tools
and supporting papers to help the process of preparing a Strategic Plan. These include tools to
assist in stakeholder mapping, public awareness campaign development, waste generation survey
forms, a model waste collection contract, an example of willingness to pay surveys, and a series
of implementation action plans from case study locations.
Figure 5. The 5 Steps in Identifying and Evaluating Options (Wilson et al 2001).

2.4 Using the Planning Guide

The revised Strategic Planning Guide for Municipal Solid Waste Management is available on an
interactive CD-ROM. The Strategic Planning Guide is easy to use - each chapter is a separate
document, readable using ACROBAT reader (which is on the CD). A ‘site map’ has been
created which links all of the steps. Care has been taken so that the product is user friendly and
easy to navigate. The Planning Guide is available from the World Bank website:
http://www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/urban/solid_wm/swm.htm.
It is intended that the Strategic Planning Guide be a living document, which will be updated
periodically to reflect ongoing experiences. It is hoped that the next step will be the production
of a web-site in order to facilitate the planned ongoing programme for dissemination. Translation
into other major languages is also planned, as is a training programme for facilitators. Funding
for these initiatives is currently being sought through the CWG. It is vital that the document is
used and feedback is provided, so that it can be updated and knowledge, experiences and
improvements can be shared. ERM are continually working to improve and update the guide
through their international project work in developing countries and donor funded programmes.
3. STRATEGIC WASTE MANAGEMENT PLANNING RESEARCH PROGRAMME

ERM is undertaking a two year ‘Engineering Knowledge and Research’ (KaR) project on behalf
of the Department for International Development (DFID). This is project is investigating the
operationalisation and effectiveness of capacity building tools for strategic MSWM planning in
assisting decision-makers in low income countries in implementing ISWM systems. In
particular, the research will focus on how tools, such as the Strategic Planning Guide for MSW,
can be used in practice in a range of municipal settings to build the capacity of decision-makers,
municipal officials and other stakeholder groups.
The research is being carried out in three case study cities; Bangalore (India), Bamako (Mali),
and Le Ceiba (Honduras). This allows the programme to be tailored to the differing needs of
these locations, and enabling ERM to evaluate how best to use the tools in different locations and
at different stages of planning and strategy development, however all will undertake a degree of
participatory planning. The 2-year programme is currently 20 months old, and the results of the
Inception Phase are available. The success of the project will be measured by;
• the development of an ‘agreed’ planning framework for each city (Bangalore, Bamako
and La Ceiba)
• the development of ‘appropriate’ capacity building tools for each city (based upon the
content of the SPG) and an analysis of their application in each city
• the publication of an additional ‘annex’ for the SPG on what tools were ‘developed’
offering advice to other cities on how to successfully implement strategic planning
through the SPG.
The results of the strategic planning process and the subsequent evaluation of the Strategic
Planning Guide will be available in the winter of 2003.

4. CONCLUSIONS

Strategic planning is a powerful tool to help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of
municipal solid waste management, both at the national and regional/city level. Publication of
the Strategic Planning Guide for Municipal Solid Waste Management makes available a
practical handbook, providing comprehensive information, supporting methodologies and tools
to assist the development of strategic MSWM plans at the local and regional level.
The focus on the process of solid waste management planning, and the emphasis on the need
for both a long term strategy and a shorter term action plan, will help both decision makers and
solid waste professionals ‘walk through’ the planning process. The comprehensive information
on the ‘content’ of the strategic plan emphasises the need for an integrated approach, including
the institutional development, financial sustainability and public awareness and participation
alongside the more obvious technical aspects of waste collection and recycling and waste
treatment and disposal. We hope that the planning guide will prove a useful tool in a wide
variety of locations for delivering greater sustainability in waste services.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Authors would like to thank the International Donor Agencies responsible for funding the
development and implementation of the Strategic Planning Guide, and would like to
acknowledge the contribution of the lead authors of the Planning Guide, Andy Whiteman and
Angela Tormin.

REFERENCES

Cointreau-Levine S., Coad, A., and Gopalan, P. 2000. Guidance Pack: Private Sector
Participation in Municipal Solid Waste Management, Swiss Centre for Development
Cooperation in Technology and Management, St.Gallen, Switzerland.
Hoornweg, D., and Thomas, L., 1999. What a Waste: Solid Waste Management in Asia. Urban
and Local Government Working Paper Series #1, World Bank, Washington DC.
Johannessen, L. M., and Boyer, G., 1999. Observations of Solid Waste Landfills in Developing
Countries: Africa, Asia and Latin America. Urban and Local Government Working Paper
Series #3, World Bank.
Johannessen, L., Kijkman, M., Bartone, C., Hanrahan, D., Boyer, M., and Chandra, C., 2000.
Health Care Waste Management Guidance Note. Health, Nutrition and Population, World
Bank, Washington, DC, May 2000.
Pan American Center for Sanitary Engineering and Environmental Sciences (CEPIS). 2001.
COSEPRE - Costs of Urban Cleansing Services: Technical Documentation, Version 1 -
Windows98. World Bank Urban & Local Government WP Series No. 9, CEPIS, Lima, 2001.
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO). 1997. Methodological Guidelines for
Sectoral Analysis in Solid Waste. PIAS Technical Report Series No. 4, Pan American Health
Organization, 1997 (in Spanish).
Rand T., Haukohl, J., and Marxen, U., 2000. Municipal Solid Waste Incineration: Decision
Maker’s Guide. World Bank, Washington.
Schubeler, P. 1996. Conceptual Framework for Municipal Solid Waste Management in Low-
Income Countries. Urban Management Programme Working Paper No. 9, World Bank,
August 1996.
Thurgood, M., 1998. Decision-Maker's Guide to Solid Waste Landfills (summary). The World
Bank, World Health Organization, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation,
Washington DC, July 1998.
Wilson D.C., Whiteman A.D and Tormin A.C. 2001. Strategic Planning Guide for Municipal
Solid Waste Management, published by the World Bank and DFID on behalf of the
Collaborative Working Group on SWM in Middle- and Low-Income Countries.