Exploring participation: Waste management cases in two favelas of Rio de Janeiro

Santa Marta and Vigario Geral are the two favelas (squatter settlements) of the roughly 600 favelas in Rio de Janeiro. While not being the poorest of the poor, the favelas are still suffering from precarious services and lack of infrastructure. Waste is one of the visual measures of existing inequalities in Rio de Janeiro. Approximately 20% of the favela dwellers suffer from precarious and substandard waste management systems (IPLANRIO, 1997). As a result of the low capacity of the public authorities to provide proper service together with the unmotivation of the favela residents’ association to carry out local waste manegement and citizens’ lack of cooperation, waste ends up accumulating in peoples’ immediate living environment. This contributes to residents’ vulnerability to environmental and social shocks and stresses. It is argued that there is a need for a holistic, people-centered approach to solving these problems (UN-Habitat, 2003). Public participation is one of the most important livelihood strategies in contributing to sustainability, efficiency and effectiveness of the waste management system. Moreover, participation and sound waste management can promote empowerment, improved health and sustain important physical assets. However, there is a gap between participation theory and practice. In practice, participation often does not work, which hinders achiving sustainability of the waste management. This paper aims, based on the study of the two aforementioned favelas, to gain a holistic understanding of participation in waste management. Theoretical and practical aspects of participation within a framework of the relationship of actor and structure are explored. Based on the information from interviews with the favela dwellers, municipality officials and NGO workers, from personal observations as well as from the/literature study it can be concluded that participation is influenced by actors’ own personal lived experiences as well as wider enabling and constraining structural factors. It is recognised that communities are heterogeneous, and therefore there is no one solution that can tackle the waste problems. Ignoring local differences may disempower those who are supposed to be empowered. It should also be recognised that participation alone is not a panacea for achieving sustainable waste management. Participation requires continuous work through awarenes raising and capacity building. Moreover, a broad-based partnership between different actors is needed in order to secure sustainability of the waste management systems.