Faculty of Economics and Management

Thesis presented and publicly defended with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of Economic Sciences

PANU KITENGE Ignace

Works Manager and Graduate of Advanced Studies

January 2023

Professor KABEY A TSHIKUKU Léonard, Promoter

Professor MUSIBONO EYUL'ANKI Dieudonné, Co-Promoter

Summary:

Household solid waste (MSW) management is one of the major challenges facing city leaders worldwide. However, progress can be observed in developed countries where local authorities are faced with considerable waste flows but implement environmentally friendly management systems that can provide a decent living environment. In developing countries, however, environmental management is far from addressing the rate of waste production. The majority of cities in developing countries are characterized by inadequate waste management, leading to adverse environmental consequences.

The low level of financial resources allocated to this sector reveals the nature of sanitation in different developing country cities and, above all, the absence of an appropriate management plan explains this situation. The daily quantity of MSW produced by the city of Kinshasa, according to the strata, is small, at 3.6 kg/inhab./day in 2015, compared to the average for low-income countries (see Table 2.1).

However, there are mountains of waste around public squares and in many neighborhoods, especially those with medium and low-income status. This is due to the improvisation of the nature of funding and sanitation allocated to MSW collection by the authority in charge of managing the city of Kinshasa.

The resulting consequences are varied and concern several sectors, notably: environment, economy, social, public health, etc.

However, the current MSW management system has shown its organizational limitations, financial, material and human resources, on the one hand, and the obsolescence of regulatory texts, most of which date from the colonial era, on the other. Despite the initiation of several clean-up campaigns, MSW management suggests a lack of prior planning and a lack of interest from the public authorities.

This is why the landscape of the city of Kinshasa presents an image of an ecologically and socially unhealthy city. The various wars that the DRC has experienced over the past two decades, the influx of populations from the hinterland to the capital (Kinshasa), not to mention a high natural growth rate, have consequently modified its geospecific configuration.
The aim of this research is to contribute to the search for: i) a method of financing and

MSW management that can catch up with the speed at which MSW production damages the natural and health environment of the city of Kinshasa, ii) the implementation of one of the sustainable solutions following collective responsibilities with regard to the costs and charges of MSW management, iii) the vision of a management strategy that takes into account the specificities of the environment in conjunction with the socio-economic reality of the population, the stratification and even the morphology of the city and the characteristics of MSW.

No technical treatment of MSW is currently being considered in the city of Kinshasa. MSW is generally burned in the open air or abandoned in illegal dumps or thrown into gutters, waterways, unoccupied plots and green spaces of the city by the population. Let us say that this study gives as an effective prerequisite to the importance of the MSW sorting method by the household before reaching the other stages of MSW treatment.

From this research, it can not only be applied to improve the management of MSW in other cities of the DRC, but, it can also serve as a basis for the design of other methodological approaches for the sustainable management of other types of waste.

This strategy, once implemented, will allow, among other things: the reduction of poverty in urban areas; the improvement of the living environment of the population; the creation of direct and indirect jobs, the reduction of the unemployment rate. The actions envisaged will also lead to: -increased responsibility of the populations and a better organization of the grassroots communities.