A POST-NORMAL SCIENCE APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING THE REAL ISSUES, CHALLENGES AND CONTEXTS OF MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE (MSW) MANAGEMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES – A CASE STUDY OF ABA-URBAN IN ABIA STATE, NIGERIA.

Effective management of waste is a complex task requiring appropriate technical solutions, sufficient organisational capacity and the collaboration of a wide range of stakeholders. The more advanced, high-income economies and developed nations of the world have evolved their current systems in a series of steps. It is now widely recognised that it is counterproductive for developing countries to use strategies and policies developed for high-income economies. There are no quick fixes. Therefore, it is unrealistic for a developing country to expect to go from uncontrolled dumping of waste to a ‘modern’ state of the art waste management system in one great leap. Rather, the process should be locally sensitive, critical and creative and owned by the community of concern. By adopting this approach, many cities and small towns in other developing countries have recorded considerable progress while the same cannot be said of cities in Nigeria, where there appears to be a lack of understanding and appreciation of the enormity of the challenges posed by MSW. The main aim of this study therefore, is to understand the real issues, challenges and contexts of MSW management in developing countries, using the Nigerian city of Aba as a case study. The study adopted a purely qualitative methodology, and by utilising the approach of Post Normal Science (PNS) and Adaptive Methodology for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health AMESH), particular attention was given to the oral testimonies and lived experiences of the participants drawn from the wider peer community of stakeholders of MSW management in the city. The results provide the first historical review of MSW management in Aba and show that, over the period reviewed; the MSW management processes remained rudimentary, often involving the evacuation of refuse from one point to another. It also shows that currently, indiscriminate dumping, littering and illegal dumping of refuse is common in the city. Further analysis of the data revealed the inadequacies in the national sanitation policy and the current MSW management system implemented by ASEPA – the agency responsible for MSW management in the city. The level of planning and organisation of MSW management activities was found to be shambolic and there were shortages in manpower and availability of equipment needed to effectively collect and dispose waste. The common method of waste disposal was found to be open dumping in dumpsites that were unplanned and unsanitary. Despite these realities, the study found that contrary to the commonly held popular notion that residents of Aba prefer a dirty environment to a clean one, most participants in this study showed a good understanding of the implication of poor MSW management practices on public health, and expressed willingness to pay higher sanitation fees if it will guarantee a cleaner environment. To curb most of the conflicts that currently exist between ASEPA and other stakeholder groups and move towards sustainable MSW management as indicated in the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and millennium development goals (MDGs), the direction of travel of MSW management in the city must change form a modernisation approach of expending scarce public resources on imported sophisticated refuse collection and transportation vehicles, that are unsuitable and does not stand the test of time for various reasons; to adopting a local approach that encourages genuine participation of all relevant stakeholders in the policy decision making, design, implementation and evaluation of the MSW management system. Such approach will help improve the livelihood of informal waste workers who are currently maligned, intimidated and harassed by MSW management authorities

Proceedings of the 2004 ONR Decision-Support Workshop Series: Interoperability

In August of 1998 the Collaborative Agent Design Research Center (CADRC) of the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), approached Dr. Phillip Abraham of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) with the proposal for an annual workshop focusing on emerging concepts in decision-support systems for military applications. The proposal was considered timely by the ONR Logistics Program Office for at least two reasons. First, rapid advances in information systems technology over the past decade had produced distributed collaborative computer-assistance capabilities with profound potential for providing meaningful support to military decision makers. Indeed, some systems based on these new capabilities such as the Integrated Marine Multi-Agent Command and Control System (IMMACCS) and the Integrated Computerized Deployment System (ICODES) had already reached the field-testing and final product stages, respectively. Second, over the past two decades the US Navy and Marine Corps had been increasingly challenged by missions demanding the rapid deployment of forces into hostile or devastate dterritories with minimum or non-existent indigenous support capabilities. Under these conditions Marine Corps forces had to rely mostly, if not entirely, on sea-based support and sustainment operations. Particularly today, operational strategies such as Operational Maneuver From The Sea (OMFTS) and Sea To Objective Maneuver (STOM) are very much in need of intelligent, near real-time and adaptive decision-support tools to assist military commanders and their staff under conditions of rapid change and overwhelming data loads. In the light of these developments the Logistics Program Office of ONR considered it timely to provide an annual forum for the interchange of ideas, needs and concepts that would address the decision-support requirements and opportunities in combined Navy and Marine Corps sea-based warfare and humanitarian relief operations. The first ONR Workshop was held April 20-22, 1999 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Luis Obispo, California. It focused on advances in technology with particular emphasis on an emerging family of powerful computer-based tools, and concluded that the most able members of this family of tools appear to be computer-based agents that are capable of communicating within a virtual environment of the real world. From 2001 onward the venue of the Workshop moved from the West Coast to Washington, and in 2003 the sponsorship was taken over by ONR’s Littoral Combat/Power Projection (FNC) Program Office (Program Manager: Mr. Barry Blumenthal). Themes and keynote speakers of past Workshops have included: 1999: ‘Collaborative Decision Making Tools’ Vadm Jerry Tuttle (USN Ret.); LtGen Paul Van Riper (USMC Ret.);Radm Leland Kollmorgen (USN Ret.); and, Dr. Gary Klein (KleinAssociates) 2000: ‘The Human-Computer Partnership in Decision-Support’ Dr. Ronald DeMarco (Associate Technical Director, ONR); Radm CharlesMunns; Col Robert Schmidle; and, Col Ray Cole (USMC Ret.) 2001: ‘Continuing the Revolution in Military Affairs’ Mr. Andrew Marshall (Director, Office of Net Assessment, OSD); and,Radm Jay M. Cohen (Chief of Naval Research, ONR) 2002: ‘Transformation ... ’ Vadm Jerry Tuttle (USN Ret.); and, Steve Cooper (CIO, Office ofHomeland Security) 2003: ‘Developing the New Infostructure’ Richard P. Lee (Assistant Deputy Under Secretary, OSD); and, MichaelO’Neil (Boeing) 2004: ‘Interoperability’ MajGen Bradley M. Lott (USMC), Deputy Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command; Donald Diggs, Director, C2 Policy, OASD (NII