Since 2014, GRET has been helping the municipality of Brazzaville to supervise and structure the waste collection service, ensured by pre-collection operators (PCOs). A status that has evolved in recent years… Having worked up to now in the informal sector, with no authorisation or recognition from local authorities, PCOs were recently officially recognised by the municipality.
By drawing on the system implemented as part of the Filipa project, in February 2019, the municipality of Brazzaville adopted a municipal deliberation on procedures for operating the waste pre-collection service. The latter gave official recognition to informal pre-collection stakeholders, thereby including the latter in the communal pre-collection coordination and monitoring unit. Today, the municipality is entirely autonomous in its support of the system for monitoring the pre-collection sector and, to do this, draws on the support of pre-collection operators’ offices throughout the city.
Waste pre-collection operators have created an association called “Lisanga Pona Bopeto ya Brazzaville” (Lipob). This association, which currently brings together 128 operators out of the 252 possessing authorisations to work in Brazzaville, implemented and is carrying out an action plan to monitor obtention of authorisations, technical support for certain PCOs, campaigns to eradicate illegal dumps in neighbourhoods not covered by the service – in order to increase the number of people subscribing to it – and the implementation of a mutual assistance service.
This progress regarding recognition of the informal sector by the authorities and structuring of operators makes it possible to create strong ties between stakeholders. This was a necessary development for proper functioning of the service, and it also gives informal operators the dignity which is often refused them.
