Exploring Administrative Capacity and Local Governance in the Peruvian Waste Sector: Implications for Complex Service Delivery in the Global South

• Author: Renzo de la Riva Agüero
• Published date: 01 June 2021
• Date: 01 June 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0160323X211026862
• Subject Matter: Research Articles

Original Research General Interest Article

Exploring Administrative

Capacity and Local Governance

in the Peruvian Waste Sector:

Implications for Complex

Service Delivery

in the Global South

Renzo de la Riva Agu

¨ero

1

Abstract

Municipalities in the Global South confront significant implementation challenges for the delivery of

services, especially as service complexity increases. Waste management, which includes services of

different complexity such as simple waste collection and complex waste disposal, is a useful sector to

study. This article conducts an exploratory case study in four Peruvian municipalities to learn about

the relationship between administrative capacity, political influence, and civil society participation

and the performance of two waste services. The findings highlight the need to more closely consider

service-specific administrative capacity in future research on performance, particularly when ana-

lyzing more complex services. Accounting for service complexity may also be important for prac-

titioners when planning measures to strengthen administrative capacity.

Keywords

local governments, waste management, administrative capacity, civil society organizations, political

support, Global South, Peru.

Managing Waste in the Global

South

Walking through the streets of urban and rural

towns in Cusco, Peru, you hardly ever see large

amounts of uncollected waste accumulating

and rotting for several days. In Sicuani, for

instance, which is one of the largest cities,

waste pickers check their schedules, team up,

and readily get to the streets during the wee

hours. Even after a busy wet market weekend

that makes its environment look like a waste

battleground, the market is left anew with a

few rounds. Waste collection is delivered by

low-income single mothers who are members

of a poverty-alleviating local civil society orga-

nization (CSO)—they cannot afford to under-

perform their job. Waste disposal, on the

contrary, is abandoned territory. These ladies

are barely involved in this waste service, and

1

Indiana University – Bloomington, IN, USA

Corresponding Author:

Renzo de la Riva Agu¨ero, Indiana University – Bloomington,

1315 E. 10th Street, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.

Email: rdelariv@indiana.edu

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2021, Vol. 53(2) 122–\ 141

municipal waste managers struggle to deal with

it in a two-person office with a sluggish com-

puter. Local collaborative go vernance—or the

government-civil society relationship to make

key local decisions—is also frail and often

absent because mayors and managers do not

invite these CSOs to the table. Thus, the dump-

site in Sicuani is a series of informal open holes

where trash overflows, flies away, and decom-

poses. Beyond its sanitary implications, decom-

posing waste, which usually results from failed

waste service provision, produces a highly con-

taminant greenhouse gas, methane. To make

matters worse, when it rains, improperly col-

lected or disposed of waste blocks drainage and

sewage systems, further complicating the con-

sequences of heavy rain and flooding.

Sicuani is not unusual in low- and middle-

income countries. Many municipalities achieve

sufficiently clean streets, but also throw their

waste in informal open holes lacking control or

treatment, adding to overall emissions (Kaza

et al. 2018). For instance,municipalitiesin lower

and lower-middle income countries collect 39

percentand 51 percent, respectively,of the waste

they generatebut adequately disposeof 7 percent

and 34 percent. Upper-middle income countries

show improvements in both waste services, col-

lecting 82 percent and adequate ly disposing of

70 percent of their wastebut still struggle to dis-

pose of 30 percent, which ends up in informal

open dumps (Kaza et al. 2018). Municipalities

in some upper-middle income countries like

Peru, however, have below-average waste per-

formance, showing wide gaps between the two

services. Sixty percent of all its municipalities

collectwaste daily or at least every otherday, but

only 22 percent of municipalities use formal

landfills

1

to dispose of part of their waste (down

from 31 percenttwo years before) and 79 percent

use open-air dumpsites (INEI 2019, 448–50).

This worsening waste disposal performance

resultedin 5,859 acres of deterioratedland across

1,585 different locations in the country in 2018

(MINAM 2018).

It is clear from these statistics that different

components of waste management are easier to

do than others. As a whole, waste management

requires detailed plans and operations, based on

waste generation forecasts and service in trica-

cies; political support, for adequate service

capacity and budget allocation; sustained

inter-office communication; and, service deliv-

ery partnerships with civil society (de Sousa

Dutra, Yamane, and Siman 2018; Fredericks

2018; Kaza et al. 2018; Marino, Chaves, and dos

Santos Junior 2018). While it requires a high

level of administrative capacity, budget, and

political and civil society action, not all of its

associated services are equally demanding—

solid waste collection from the streets, while

requiring significa nt logistical coordin ation, is

a simpler task than proper waste disposal

(Abarca-Guerrero, Maas, and Hogland 2013;

Lohri, Camenzind, and Zurbru

¨gg 2014; Ostrom

2009; Schu

¨beler, Christen, and Wehrle 1996).

Specifically, while we know that limited

resources constitute a significant and well-

documented impediment for municipal perfor-

mance in the Global South (Boyne 2003;

Christensen and Gazley 2008; Filmer and

Pritchett 1999; Ingraham, Joyce, and Donahue

2003; Rajkumar and Swaroop 2008; World

Bank 2003), less knowledge exists about the

organizational capabilities that may matter at

the administrative office level, the role of

political support or interference, or the invol-

vement of civil society organizations when

services differ in complexity.

Therefore, this article draws from explora-

tory case studies of four Peruvian municipali-

ties to ask the following questions:

What differences exist between waste

collection and waste disposal programs

in terms of service-specific administra-

tive capacity, local political support, and

civil society involvement?

What best explains the gap between

municipal success at collecting waste

and blatant failure to dispose of it

according to best practices?

These questions matter because perfor-

mance differences between simple and com-

plex waste management tasks may mainly

reveal administrative weakness in providing

more complex services. If that is the case,

123

de la Riva Agu

¨ero