Potential contribution of using voluntary agreements to manage informal sector pollution in Zambia : the case of Lusaka's Soweto and City markets

Abstract

After several decades of rapid urbanisation, population growth and industrialisation, most developing countries have now become home to the rapidly increasing informal sector’s polluting activities. With marked failures in their use of traditional Command and Control (CAC) legislation, limited technical and fiscal environmental protection resources coupled with weak environmental protection, complimentary judicial and legislative institutions, it has become necessary for these countries to look somewhere else for environment regulation policy. This study evaluates potential contributions of public-led voluntary agreements programs in the control of informal sector pollution in Lusaka’s Soweto and City markets in Zambia. The study employs Binary Logistic Models to establish factors critical to the successful implementation of environmental management voluntary agreements in the two markets. It also uses the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) to assess and estimate traders’ Willingness to pay (WTP) for proposed improvements to cleanliness in the markets. The main empirical data for the study was collected by means of a questionnaire survey of 93 traders in the two markets and supplemented by semi-structured interviews. The study finds that indeed voluntary agreements have a potential to control informal sector pollution in developing countries like Zambia. The study also finds that while the informal sector significantly contributes to urban pollution, they are hamstrung by lack of capacity to control their own pollution. The absence of adequate regulatory enforcement and appropriate incentives in terms of waste bins and cleaners in these markets seriously militate against the sector’s limited efforts in implementing positive environmental management in these markets. The traders’ mean willingness to pay (WTP) for the proposed improvement to cleanliness in the two market is K483,384 per trader per year while the total WTP of all the traders in the two markets is K1,208,460,000 or K1.2 billion per year. As a proportion of the traders’ average annual income, the mean WTP amounts to 0.8%. The study concludes that deliberate interventions with the aim of enhancing their capacity are necessary. In this regard specific recommendations have been made for policy intervention in specific key areas, namely; the provision of appropriate incentives in form of increasing the number of waste bins and cleaners in the markets together with supporting organisational structure and efficient services in terms of frequent removal of waste from the markets by the local authority; the expansion and strengthening of the physical presence of regulatory and enforcement agents in these markets and finally; the building of a shared understanding among the traders of the need for maintaining a clean and environmentally conducive market area through continued sensitisation programs in these markets Copyright