UGoS: Methodology

The UGoS project aims to generate knowledge on sound solid waste management. However, knowledge generation is not a linear process where non-experts are tought through books or experts. It is rather a process where all relevant stakeholders share and exchange their experiences, in order to create and disseminate new hybrid forms of knowledge.
To reach this goal, a stepwise reseach approach is applied, where different methods of data and information collection and processing, knowledge exchange, creation and dissemination are embedded in a derived form of participatory action research (PAR).
Thus, the research is split in three research phases:
  1. Phase I comprises of a system description, based on desk research, stakeholder interviews, questionnaire surveys, participatory observations. Stakeholders as participants are the project partners, namely Busia Municipal Council (BMC) and the NGO Youth Environment Service (YES), the results of the system description were presented to other stakeholders, mainly the lower political administration in the Municipality (Local Councils, LCs), and NGO representatives.
  2. Phase II goes a step deeper into the system, addressing problems as defined in Phase I. The focus herein lies in 1) waste collection for a hygienic environment, 2) organic waste management, and 3) an in-depth systems analysis. Stakeholders as participants are, beside YES and BMC, local politicians, village communities, farmers their organisations, and private actors. Methods applied are:
    • participatory action research with village communities to improve waste management and hygiene in the villages, including e.g. focus group discussions and photo mapping
    • participatory action research with farmers as current and potential absorbers of biowaste as fodder or fertilizer; demonstration gardens for compost use are established by farmers and scientifically guided through Makerere University (MU) and YES; knowledge exchange workshops and focus group discussions among researchers, BMC, YES, farmers and farmer representatives are hold
    • material flow analysis (MFA), full cost accounting (FCA), and stakeholder analysis (SA) as part of the in-depth systems analysis; data is collected through interviews, questionnaire surveys, participant observations, data recording, waste sampling mainly by YES, TUW, and MU
  3. Phase III summarizes and disseminates the results, e.g. through a public stakeholder workshop in Busia.
 
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