Hot off the press, the “Bilan et enseignements du projet Promaiss” (in French only)* booklet has just been published! This publication takes a look back at a project that enabled an entire waste collection value chain to be set up in Dolisie – the third largest city in Congo – for 15,000 inhabitants (out of the 100,000 living in the municipality). A huge first for GRET, as projects in the solid waste sector are still rare…
The Promaiss project, which was funded jointly by the European Union, the municipality of Dolisie, Find (GRET’s endowment fund) (in French only) and the Fondation Suez (formerly Fonds Suez Initiatives), which came to an end in December 2015, made it possible to set up a service featuring: pre-collection of waste from homes using a waste-collecting motorbike; transfer of waste via a household waste transit station (Atom); and lastly, evacuation of waste by dumper-trucks to a final landfill destination located 8 km from the city centre.
Numerous parallel activities were also conducted, such as the first diagnosis of waste in Dolisie, the production of three service scenarios, implementation of a framework for consultation and reflection on waste, an awareness-raising/marketing campaign among 3,000 households and 2,500 pupils in the city’s schools, and provision of regular technical support to the municipal technical services throughout the project.
During 2016, almost 2,000 tons of waste were collected and 1,400 tons were evacuated to the final landfill, making this service one of the most efficient in the sub-region. Payment of the household waste collection tax was regular during this period with an average of 2.5 million CFA per month (i.e. a little over 3,800 euros), making it possible to cover 84 % of the costs related to operating the service (excluding the wage bill which is covered by the municipal budget). Lastly, a satisfaction survey conducted in 2016 showed that 94 % of people surveyed said they were satisfied or very satisfied with this service (Satisfaction survey on the waste collection service in Dolisie (GRET, 2016)).
Extending the service to 60,000 inhabitants by the end of the year
But there have been some twists and turns, and difficulties were encountered during 2016, when the success of the service was somewhat tempered by municipal bureaucracy, significant degradation of roads and the national economic crisis, which prevented the municipality of Dolisie from taking complete charge of the service. On observing this, GRET was led to rethink the service’s collection and management system, and proposed new, more appropriate scenarios to the municipality of Dolisie as part of the Gicod project, which took over from the Promaiss project in January 2016 and aims to extend the service to 60,000 inhabitants.
This initial experience with an entire waste management chain nevertheless provided a wealth of lessons, and numerous tools and procedures created remain pertinent and can be transferred to other projects and local authorities in the region. The path is therefore already paved for GRET, which is now targeting a regular, sustainable and social service in 2018 for Dolisie.
* “Assessment and findings of the Promaiss project”
