Community participation in municipal solid waste management (MSWM) is a
global response to unprecedented rapid urbanization facing poor countries
that has overwhelmed local government’s ability to plan and manage solid
wastes. Even though many poor countries adopted it since early 1990s, the
state of MSWM is still critical. This study, which was conducted in Morogoro
municipality, aimed to investigate the impact of organizational, coordination,
legal resource and community participation factors on achieving sustainable
community participation (CP) in MSWM in a market economy. The research
involved a randomly sampled population of 266 households out of 26642 total
households in Morogoro municipality, and several CBOs engaged in MSWM
projects. Questionnaire interviews, observations, in-depth interviews and
documentary reviews were used to collect data. The SPSS computer
programme was used to analyze variables of the study, complemented with
qualitative data in descriptive analysis. The findings show that Morogoro
municipality has not yet achieved effective CP in MSWM due to various
reasons, including the lack of commitment to effectively involve local
communities in the strategy, existing outdated MSWM laws, and laxity in
enforcing them by elites. The study also revealed that elites lacked
commitment to practice the strategy. Thus, it recommends that CP in MSWM
should be encouraged; while also enforcing existing laws and reviewing
outdated ones so that those that generate waste pay for its management.