Making All Voices Count: “Maputo has a population of over 1.1 million people, with 54 per cent living below the poverty line and 70 per cent living in informal settlements. The majority of the city’s roads are unpaved and flood control is limited, particularly in informal settlements in peri-urban areas. During the rainy season, streets flood and gutters quickly fill with debris and garbage, blocking the drainage of rainwater.
Solid waste management is one of the most important services that the Maputo Municipal Council must provide. However the lack of funding, capacity, and transparency within the municipality has resulted in substandard waste removal.
The municipality has contracted private companies to collect the waste from the urban communities. Micro-entrepreneurs are hired to travel by foot through high-density, low-income areas using trolleys to pick up trash from households and communal bins in the peri-urban neighborhoods.
Both the waste removal companies and individual waste collectors have difficulties locating waste for removal, coordinating their routes and organising collection points.
MOPA – a tool for both citizens and local government
MOPA is a communications platform that allows participatory monitoring of waste collection in Maputo. Once a waste management problem is reported, one of two large waste collection companies and 56 micro-enterprises act to resolve it. Their actions are logged on the platform by Maputo’s municipality staff.
Implemented by the private company UX Information Technologies and co-designed with the Maputo Municipal Waste Management Services, the platform was initially supported by the World Bank.
With funding from Making All Voices Count, the platform expanded to 42 neighbourhoods (from the four pilot areas) and managed to include a free-to-user mobile application that can be used on any cellphone device with USSD and SMS alternatives. This change enabled residents to directly notify the municipality of problems, track their resolution, and get updates on when and how their issue has been addressed…(More)”.