Highlights

There are few World Bank Group efforts to articulate specific links between policies and regulations enacted and overall improvements in municipal solid waste management (MSWM) systems. However, successful efforts to enact policy and regulations occur in countries that have undertaken activities geared toward integrated approaches.

The International Finance Corporation does not play a strong role in MSWM policy and institutional development, but when it does, it can be effective in supporting improvements to the enabling frameworks for private investment in MSWM.

World Bank support for basic municipal solid waste infrastructure and service delivery has been generally effective but is often undermined by insufficient attention to financial sustainability.

Very few projects tracked the environmental, social, or economic outcomes of improving MSWM. Many that did either did not report on outcomes or reported that the intended outcomes were not achieved because of delays or implementation challenges. Local governments and regulatory agencies are ultimately responsible for measuring these impact areas, and this measurement may require more specialized and expensive interventions than are provided currently.

Articulating and capturing higher-order impacts shows that MSWM can make substantial contributions toward achieving country-level environmental, social, and economic goals. Good practice examples show how MSWM can contribute to reducing global greenhouse gas emission (Bosnia and Herzegovina), abating local pollution (especially in China), and creating jobs for low-income urban residents (the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, and Liberia).

This chapter assesses the effectiveness of Bank Group support for MSWM in client countries. Effectiveness is assessed based on IEG’s evaluations of projects that were closed during 2010–20, which include World Bank projects, IFC investments, and completed advisory services. The World Bank has 82 closed projects covering 55 countries, and project-level IEG Implementation Completion and Results Report Reviews covered 68 of those projects.1 Only one of IFC’s 13 investments in 7 countries was matured and evaluated through an Expanded Project Supervision Report review. Nine of 26 IFC advisory services in 19 countries were closed and evaluated through Project Completion Reports. For the World Bank’s evaluated projects, the evaluation rated the performance of each determinant of pillars 1 and 2 that the project addressed and each environment, social, and health determinant. Thus, if a completed World Bank project addressed infrastructure and planning, its performance against each of these elements was assessed on whether it was effective or not, based on key performance indicators and other information available from the project evaluations. The following discussion for World Bank projects is based on this analysis.

Pillar 1: Policies, Institutions, Capacity Building, and Planning

A small proportion of World Bank projects addressed pillar 1, and although most of them achieved the expected outputs, attribution of wider MSWM outcomes is less clear. Between 15 and 30 percent of the World Bank lending portfolio addressed policy, institutions, capacity building, and planning (table 3.1). The planned outputs were achieved in the majority of projects that were evaluated—between 69 and 81 percent. But attributing larger MSWM outcomes to these projects was not possible in some cases, especially for institutional development and capacity-building activities.

Source: Independent Evaluation Group.

Note: a. Total portfolio is 117 projects.b. Performance is assessed based on an analysis of key performance indicators for a given determinant.

World Bank projects that addressed policy and regulatory issues effectively were generally linked to positive overall MSWM outcomes. Most client countries have at least basic policy and regulatory elements in place, but these policies often need clarification, especially at local levels. There is a positive association between cases where the World Bank supported policy and regulatory reform effectively and those where the World Bank also achieved effective results across both evaluation pillars. In West Bank and Gaza, the Southern West Bank Solid Waste Management Project helped update guidelines for PPPs, including specifications for solid waste equipment and facilities. This upstream assistance helped implement a PPP contract for managing a landfill and generated momentum for wider solid waste management sector reform. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the World Bank’s solid waste management projects helped develop a legal framework for facilitating the development of intermunicipal boards that is underpinning improved performance in the MSWM sector. Policy actions in the Morocco development policy loan (DPL) series encompassed issues belonging to several determinants of the evaluation framework’s two pillars—institutional coordination, budgeting, sector industry standards, transparency, and cost-effectiveness—as part of the country’s National Solid Waste Program. These efforts helped increase waste collection in Morocco to near-universal coverage. Similarly, the Colombia DPL for Sustainable Development updated standards and regulations for sanitary landfills in line with Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development recommendations and applied waste hierarchy principles in promoting recycling and reuse. World Bank regulatory assistance helped improve the welfare of waste pickers and was instrumental in increasing adequate disposal rates. However, policy dialogue for MSWM was stalled under Nigeria’s Lagos Metropolitan Development and Governance Project, partly because it was given less priority than other urban services the project covered, and no progress was made in improving the state of MSWM in the city.

Institutional development and capacity-building activities were generally carried out as planned, but they often did not track their contributions to overall MSWM outcomes. Institutional development was mainly through developing dedicated municipal solid waste cells or units at the local government or other levels, implementing mechanisms for intermunicipal district coordination, and equipping training centers. Capacity building was carried out through training officials from local government and other levels using classroom training and study tours. Most of the outputs from these activities (for example, the number of training sessions and the number of persons trained) were reported but can be reasonably linked to overall MSWM outcomes in only a few cases. A positive experience from Mozambique’s Maputo Municipal Development Program I and II involved support for reorganization in the City Council of Maputo to focus on the core functions of policy development and planning of solid waste services while contracting out to private firms and microenterprises the job of collecting and disposing of garbage. These actions can be linked to significant improvements in access and service delivery. Azerbaijan’s ARP II Integrated Solid Waste Management Project was instrumental in setting up Tamiz Shahar, a solid waste management company, with positive results for MSWM in the Baku area. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s solid waste management projects helped establish 13 intermunicipal districts using a regional landfill and sharing operational and capital costs. By contrast, Brazil’s Ceara Regional Development, a regional consortium established for a landfill, did not materialize because of disagreement among members. In the Central African Republic’s Emergency Urban Infrastructure Emergency Recovery Loan, there is no clear evidence for strengthened capacity of stakeholders in MSWM after management training in this regard. The Maldives’ Ari Atoll Solid Waste Management Project provided training to at least one community member in each participating island in solid waste management practices, but there is no clear evidence linking it to results. Tanzania’s Strategic Cities Project resulted in more efficient collection and disposal methods at project completion, but it is not clear whether this can be attributed to increased local government capacity that can sustain these results in the long term or whether the results were mainly attributable to external consulting services and additional specialists employed during project implementation.

World Bank project activities for MSWM planning were mostly completed as envisioned, but there is little evidence of follow-up. Support for planning was directed mainly toward preparing MSWM strategies and master plans (for capital cities or major cities), and these were completed with a few exceptions. But there appears to have been little follow-up through investments, either through the borrower’s own funds or through projects funded by external sources. This also makes it likely that any capacity addition for local government or other bodies during the planning exercise may have dissipated after project completion. For example, MSWM plans were developed for six provinces and six municipalities and regions in Argentina, in the Central African Republic for the cities of Bangui and Bimbo, and in Côte d’Ivoire for Abidjan without any indication of follow-up. In Nepal, on a smaller scale, four medium-size municipalities improved their solid waste management services, first by developing a solid waste management strategy and service implementation plan and then by following the plans with grant subsidy support.

IFC investments and advisory services improved the enabling framework for private investments in some cases. IFC advisory services helped improve PPP regulatory frameworks in Serbia that contributed to finalizing the Belgrade Waste-to-Energy Project. They also helped clarify the legal enabling environment for private investment in MSWM in Maldives, setting the stage for private participation. In Albania, IFC’s support for formulating legal provisions for packaging and e-waste was not followed through because of political changes. Several advisory engagements captured in table B.3 reflect similar efforts with mixed results in Brazil, Egypt, Guinea, India, Kosovo, Lesotho, Montenegro, and West Bank and Gaza. Efforts are currently under way in Indonesia and Uganda. In addition, IFC has provided advisory services related to the waste sector in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Bogota, Colombia; and Izmir, Turkey (as part of the Cities Business Model).

Pillar 2: Infrastructure, Access, and Service Delivery

World Bank support for infrastructure development in the MSWM portfolio achieved its intended results in most projects where it was attempted. World Bank support for infrastructure and operations to collect, transfer, and dispose of solid waste covered 56 percent of the project portfolio and generally realized the intended outputs in 83 percent of the evaluated projects (table 3.2). In decreasing order of occurrences, the following are the types of infrastructure that were supported: (i) disposal: closure of open dumps, rehabilitation of dumps and landfills, and opening of new sanitary landfills; (ii) collection, separation, sorting, transfer, transport: bins, trucks, and transfer stations; and (iii) sorting, recycling: material recovery facilities and recycling facilities. Under the evaluated portfolio, about 137 dumpsites closed, 40 sanitary landfills were built, and 112 transfer stations were built, with varying sizes and capacity.

Source: Independent Evaluation Group.

Note: a. Performance is assessed based on an analysis of key performance indicators for a given parameter.

Efforts to improve access and service delivery—whether carried out by themselves or in conjunction with new infrastructure—had favorable results in nearly all cases. World Bank projects addressed access to MSWM collection and service delivery in 38 percent of the project portfolio, and favorable results were achieved in 92 percent of the evaluated cases. Access is measured by the number of waste generators (households and commercial enterprises) covered by MSWM services, mainly waste collection and transport. Service delivery is measured by the frequency and quality of MSWM services. In Côte d’Ivoire’s Emergency Urban Infrastructure Emergency Recovery Loan, the number of people in urban areas with access to regular solid waste collection increased from about 3 million to 4.5 million, surpassing the target of 4 million. In the surveyed municipalities, the majority of respondents agreed that household waste collection and frequency had improved. Under Bosnia and Herzegovina’s solid waste management projects, the percentage of households in the project area that were serviced by a formal waste management system increased from 25 to 64 percent, marginally exceeding the target. Under the Central African Republic’s Emergency Urban Infrastructure Emergency Recovery Loan, the number of people in urban areas provided with access to regular solid waste collection was only 183,600 against a target of 390,000. However, 72 percent of households that were provided access were satisfied with the regularity of collection.

Infrastructure improvements covering landfills and equipment for collection and transport increased the scale of solid waste management operations in most cases. Solid waste management operations are assessed on scale and frequency of transfer, transport, and disposal. These were addressed in 38 percent of the project portfolio, with favorable results in 74 percent of the evaluated cases. In Benin’s Decentralized City Management II Project, the share of municipal waste collected and transported out of the capital city of Porto-Novo (as a percentage of the total quantity) rose to 71 percent against a baseline of 25 percent and a target of 65 percent. In West Bank and Gaza’s Southern West Bank Solid Waste Management Project, there was a transformational shift in solid waste management services in two governorates, from a widely criticized, primitive, local open dump to a modern, internationally comparable landfill and waste disposal operation with sound environmental processes and social acceptability. In Argentina’s National Urban Solid Waste Management Project, the targeted percentage of solid waste disposed of in the new sanitary landfills (as a proportion of the total estimated solid waste generated by the municipalities) was exceeded—98 percent achieved, compared with the goal of 85 percent. However, in Turkey’s Municipal Services Project, only 52 percent of the targeted waste disposal (in tons per year) was achieved at project completion.

Cost Recovery and Private Sector Participation

Attention to cost recovery and financial sustainability in World Bank projects lags significantly behind infrastructure provision, and results were favorable in only about half of the evaluated cases. The World Bank addressed the issue of cost recovery and improved financial sustainability in 32 percent of the portfolio, and only 56 percent of the evaluated projects showed favorable results. Mozambique, Vietnam, and West Bank and Gaza had positive experiences in which 70–90 percent or more of solid waste providers’ costs (including loan repayments in Vietnam) were recovered from user fees. In Morocco, the government allocated supplementary financial support to local governments on a regressive basis over three to four years for collection and cleaning and contributing to landfill construction. Several other countries had less success in meeting cost recovery targets, even at project completion. In Albania’s Coastal Zone Management Adaptable Program Loan 1 Project, there was a risk that the larger environmental infrastructure investments, such as the solid waste landfill site and the transfer station, would not be operated fully or maintained properly because of inadequate allocations in local utility companies’ maintenance budgets. In the Kyrgyz Republic’s Bishkek and Osh Urban Infrastructure Project, despite improvements to the cities’ revenue collection, most utilities and towns do not have adequate financial resources, and sector financing remains low.

A small proportion of World Bank projects addressed private participation in MSWM activities with generally limited scope and scale. Only 19 percent of World Bank projects had activities involving private sector involvement, and 73 percent of the evaluated cases had positive results. Under West Bank and Gaza’s Global Partnership on Results-Based Aid Solid Waste Management Project, a concession agreement with a private landfill operator was implemented, although the contractor chose not to continue after the initial contract period because of unfavorable financial terms and difficult working conditions. Under Mozambique’s Maputo Municipal Development Program I and II, primary waste collection was initiated in 25 suburban neighborhoods, using microenterprises to provide collection services. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, recycling facilities were installed and made operational in four regions through contracts between utilities and private companies.

Awareness Raising and Behavioral Change

Activities for raising awareness and behavior change were limited, but positive results were achieved in most evaluated cases. Awareness and behavior change activities were attempted in 30 percent of the project portfolio, and favorable results were obtained in 87 percent of the evaluated cases. The programs generally targeted waste generators (households and commercial enterprises). The activities included citizen engagement programs, public awareness campaigns, and complaint systems. Positive results were achieved in projects in Argentina, Benin, Egypt, and West Bank and Gaza, raising public awareness and demand for solid waste collection, encouraging residents to pay for collection, reducing the discharge of solid waste into open drains, and decreasing illegal dumping. In India, IFC advisory services work supported a pan-India awareness campaign delivered through social media and radio, creating broader awareness across both consumers and local waste management companies about the hazards of e-waste.

Integration of the Informal Sector

Relatively few MSWM projects addressed the issue of waste pickers (beyond compliance with social safeguards), though several show positive results. The World Bank addressed the issue of informal waste pickers in only 18 percent of its portfolio, with 82 percent of the evaluated cases showing favorable results. In Argentina’s National Urban Solid Waste Management Project, the targeted number of informal recyclers that were integrated into formal activities of the municipalities’ sanitary landfills and separation plants was only partially achieved—275 were integrated compared with the target of 360. The Morocco DPL series supported pilots for inclusion of informal waste pickers by organizing cooperatives through partnerships with municipalities and private operators. IEG’s discussion with one well-functioning cooperative in Meknes municipality found that its success was due to the municipality and the private company’s willingness to support the informal waste pickers in organizing themselves as a cooperative to operate the sorting center. However, these efforts need to be scaled up to have wider impact. In Colombia, the World Bank’s DPL series supported the government’s regulatory efforts by developing and implementing frameworks to formalize waste pickers and secure their livelihoods. Other efforts were less successful because subnational entities did not follow through on implementation of World Bank proposals on integrating waste pickers, even though national governments may have agreed with them. This was the case in Brazil’s Integrated Solid Waste Management and Carbon Finance Project, in which waste pickers’ issues were incorporated in the design phase, but limited progress was made because of implementation and coordination challenges at the local government level, including disagreement over the amount of monetary compensation.

Social safeguard requirements can be leveraged to create substantial social and economic benefits for waste pickers and other informal actors. This was demonstrated by the World Bank–supported MSWM projects in West Bank and Gaza relating to waste pickers who were at risk of losing their livelihoods when dumpsites closed. Through the Sustainable MSWM Project, a livelihood assessment was conducted instead of only offering compensation for monetary loss, and a program was designed for waste pickers and implemented by specialized nongovernmental organizations. Underage pickers were allowed to attend vocational schools, and at least 80 percent of households whose livelihood depended on waste picking were integrated into improved and commercially viable waste management plans or other income-generating plans that the project promoted.

Only a few closed projects addressed gender considerations, but the active portfolio is promoting good practices. Only 10 percent of the project portfolio included gender considerations for informal waste pickers. They were mostly about counting female beneficiaries of MSWM access and services, and all five evaluated projects met their generally modest expectations. Mozambique’s Municipal Development Program solid waste microenterprises generated 590 jobs for local residents, many of whom are women. More recently, some active projects are taking a more nuanced approach. In Ghana, the Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development Project is conducting a gender-sensitive trash value-chain analysis (which includes recycling and processing handpicked trash) and is mapping the results to support women operating as trash pickers. This will include elements of cost analysis, access (both monetary and nonmonetary), and usage needed to make gender-informed decisions. In Pakistan’s Competitive and Livable City of Karachi Project, the World Bank is tracking the number of jobs and the working conditions of women employed in the solid waste management sector, both formally and informally and across the value chain.

Environmental, Health, Social, and Economic Impacts

Very few projects tracked the environmental, health, social, or economic impacts of improved MSWM activities. Only 9–21 percent of projects in the World Bank portfolio reported on some type of environmental, social, or economic impacts linked to MSWM activities (table 3.3). Of those projects, many either did not report any data on outcomes or reported that the intended impacts were not achieved because of delays or other challenges in implementing MSWM activities. Local governments and regulatory agencies are ultimately responsible for measuring these impact areas, yet this measurement may require more specialized and expensive interventions than are provided currently. Measuring these impacts is essential because they provide the basis to make the case for greater attention to and resource allocation for MSWM.

Source: Independent Evaluation Group.

Environment and Climate Change

World Bank support for landfill gas collection and the conversion of gas to energy has not yielded the expected returns in a majority of cases. Landfill gas is a natural by-product of the decomposition of organic material in landfills and is composed of about equal proportions of methane and carbon dioxide, together with a small quantity of nonmethane organic compounds. The World Bank supported landfill gas collection through six projects in six countries (Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Jordan, and Tunisia) during FY10–20, as detailed in box 3.1. The evaluation also took stock of the results of several carbon finance projects for landfill gas collection that were attached to parent projects that closed before 2010 (appendix E).

Support for pollution monitoring was an essential mechanism for identifying and acting on MSWM-related pollution risks. MSWM activities in China show how the World Bank can help countries monitor and measurably achieve reduction in surface water, groundwater, and soil pollution from municipal solid waste sources. Within the MSWM portfolio, China was the country that articulated and measured MSWM water and soil pollution reduction goals most frequently. For example, in the Liaoning Medium Cities Infrastructure Project, China established groundwater monitoring wells to prevent the spread of pollution from MSWM sources. The project provided new solid waste disposal capacity of about 2,000 tons per day, including the treatment of highly contaminating leachate at the landfill sites, and helped close several uncontrolled dumpsites. Through the established monitoring, the project reported on reduced groundwater contamination via landfills. In the Zhejiang Qiantang River Basin Small Town Environment Project, the World Bank assisted China in reducing pollution of the surface water, groundwater, and soil. Three open dumps were closed to reduce contamination to groundwater. An external environmental agency monitored the groundwater quality at the closed sites regularly and ensured that the sites were appropriately closed.

Health Impacts

Almost no projects tracked the positive human health outcomes that are expected to follow from improved MSWM. Improved MSWM, including closing open dumpsites, can prevent disease in surrounding areas. In the World Bank’s MSWM portfolio, only 9 percent of the projects articulated links with human health. All five closed projects in this set claimed positive health impacts that were explained by cause-and-effect assumptions, without any quantitative evidence.

Economic and Social Impacts

Some projects tracked economic impacts, mainly related to job creation in the MSWM sector, including in LICs and fragile contexts. Seventeen projects could track economic impacts. Among those, 13 projects were closed and evaluated, and 7 of them reported positive results. The Integration of the Informal Sector section discusses some examples of job creation for informal workers. Among other examples of job creation in the municipal solid waste sector, Mozambique’s Maputo Municipal Development Program I and II resulted in employment for about 590 workers in 35 microenterprises that extended waste collection services to 43 suburban neighborhoods covering about 900,000 residents. In Côte d’Ivoire, 7,000 people were given permanent jobs as waste collectors through the Emergency Urban Infrastructure Emergency Recovery Loan (2008–14), greatly exceeding the target of 4,500. In Liberia, the Emergency Monrovia Urban Sanitation Project supported the local government authority in providing employment to skip and tipper truck drivers; skip location, transfer station, and landfill operatives; site managers; and administration staff, in addition to more than 400 street sweepers, of which 60 percent were women. The project also promoted primary waste collection services by community-based enterprises providing employment opportunities for informal waste pickers. However, in the Central African Republic, the Emergency Urban Infrastructure Emergency Recovery Loan could achieve only 15 percent of the targeted 350 jobs.

A small number of projects linked improved MSWM with tourism development, but most either did not measure these effects or could not achieve the desired impacts. In China’s Gansu Cultural and Natural Heritage Protection and Development Project, the share of tourists who purchased private tourism services when visiting the project sites increased from 34 percent in 2007 to 64 percent in 2015, exceeding the project end target of 60 percent. This increase in purchases of tourism services was linked to visitor satisfaction with site management, including MSWM. Albania’s Coastal Zone Management Project aimed to support the city of Saranda’s tourism, partly through improvements in MSWM, but no impacts were measured. In the Montenegro Environmentally Sensitive Tourist Areas Project, there was no provision to measure tourism development outcomes resulting from improved MSWM.

The increased value of reclaimed land is an important but often unrecognized outcome of MSWM activities. Land value can increase, for example, from closing illegal landfills and converting the land to other productive uses. There are opportunities to assess such increases in land value as economic impacts of MSWM activities through well-designed metrics. There were 18 projects in the World Bank portfolio that closed illegal dumps, but most did not have any explicit plans to create or define a more productive use for these open spaces or to capture the land value increase in and around the closed landfills. The results relating to the Balakhani landfill for the Greater Baku region under Azerbaijan’s ARP II Integrated Solid Waste Management Project are a leading example of the transformation of urban areas near closed or improved sites that had a transformative impact on the city.

Effectiveness of Bank Group Collaboration

It is too soon to evaluate the effectiveness of most intra–Bank Group efforts to collaborate on MSWM. However, there are some instances of collaboration from the completed and ongoing initiatives. One such Bank Group collaborative effort, a PPP transaction in support of landfill management under West Bank and Gaza’s Global Partnership on Results-Based Aid Solid Waste Management Project, was successful initially, but the contractor chose not to continue after the initial contract period because of unfavorable financial terms and difficult working conditions. In Egypt, a possible model for World Bank–IFC collaboration is under way in which policy aspects were addressed within the development policy operation framework, with commitment from senior management to enable IFC transactions. The Cities Initiative combines investment and advice for cities to address pressing urban needs with private sector participation.2 It is expected to provide opportunities for further collaboration. Recent IFC country strategies for the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Pakistan propose World Bank and IFC collaboration for MSWM.