Cooperation among small urban centres in the Lake Victoria Basin as a necessary strategy for managing solid waste: the case of Kisii, Homa Bay and Migori municipalities

Abstract

Solid waste management remains a daunting task for small municipalities found in the Lake Victoria Basin. The situation is aggravated by low prioritisation of solid waste management, limited revenues for financing waste management and the ever increasing population in these municipalities. Cooperation offers an option that can be considered as it would allow neighbouring municipal councils to pool their resources together to address this common challenge. This is pegged on achieving economies of scale and internalising externalities. Using interviews, stakeholders workshop, observation and documents review, this paper presents findings and conclusions to a study that was carried out to assess opportunities for cooperation amongst three small neighbouring municipal authorities in the Lake Victoria Basin namely Kisii, Homa Bay and Migori municipalities. This paper concludes that cooperation provides a necessary strategy to addressing solid waste management challenges and that there are indeed various opportunities within the institutional organisation and along the waste chain for cooperation in order to jointly accomplish this.