To cite this article: Kassahun Tassie & Birara Endalew | (2020) Willingness to pay for improved solid waste management services and associated factors among urban households: One and one half bounded contingent valuation study in Bahir Dar city, Ethiopia,

Ethiopia is one of the largest charcoal-producing countries in Africa where its urban consumers burn over 3 million tons per year. The purpose of this study was to measure the amount of charcoal produced and its related environmental and socioeconomic impact in the study area. A total of 305 respondents were selected by using a simple random sampling technique. The amount of greenhouse gas emissions from charcoal production was analyzed based on the Intergovernmental Panel on climate change quantification techniques, and the impact of charcoal production on households’ income was analyzed using propensity score matching. The results revealed that the annual charcoal production rate and emission of carbon dioxide equivalent have an increasing trend at an alarming rate in the study area. From propensity score matching analysis, the economic impact of charcoal production has a positive difference of 0.43813162 as compared to nonproducers. Socioeconomic factors like land size, eucalyptus coverage, agricultural extension, market distance, and the number of oxen have a highly significant effect but variables like sex, family size, education status, credit services, and marital status had no significant effect on charcoal production. In general, even though charcoal production is economically having a positive impact on households’ annual aggregate income; it has disproportionality adverse effect on the environment like air pollution in addition to sophisticated respiratory health problems. Therefore, responsible institutions and planners should have focused on the multidimensional effect of traditional charcoal production on environmental issues and sophisticated health problems especially on employed laborers and nearby residents.

Church forests provide a safe habitat for plants and animals, sources of food and traditional medicine, seed bank for native tree species, reduce soil erosion and rich in biodiversity. But the economic values of these important benefits of church forests were not well documented. Therefore, this study was conducted to estimate the mean and total willingness to pay for church forest conservation using open-ended and double bounded contingent valuation formats. In doing so, both cash and labour contributions were used to measure the respondents’ willingness to pay. Primary data were collected from 300 randomly selected households and analyzed using descriptive statistics and bivariate probit model. The estimated mean willingness to pay from the double bounded format (239.79 Ethiopian Birr) is higher than from the open-ended format (178 Ethiopian Birr). Similarly, the estimated mean willingness to contribute labour was also 71.51 and 94.34 man-days for the open-ended and double bounded contingent valuation format, respectively. The comparison indicated that the mean and total willingness to pay from the double bounded format is higher than in the open-ended format. Therefore, researchers, policymakers, and forestry experts should give special attention to the double bounded format rather than to the open-ended format to elicit respondents’ willingness to pay for the conservation of church forests.

Municipal Solid Waste management is one of the most fundamental issues in the contemporary urban environments particularly in developing countries like Ethiopia. A huge generation of waste coupled with unbalanced waste management services is the major challenges facing the City of Addis Ababa. A continuous increase of production of more wastes and change in the composition of waste into complex, the waste management practice is challenged by low prioritization of waste management, limited revenues for financing waste management with the ever increasing population of this city. This retrospective study received documents from books, thesis works, annual waste management conference reports, journals on waste management, newsletters, abstracts and proceedings which can properly address the main factors that strongly hinder proper waste management and the extent to which community is aware of appropriate waste disposal systems in Addis Ababa city. The mechanism of Addis Ababa city Sanitation, Beautification and Park Development Authority to coordinate stakeholders has played a vital role in waste management. However, the daily monitoring of waste management by the community development section has not been sufficient because of poor governance where accountability, participation and transparency are lacking. It is also unauthorized solid waste dumping practice problem in different locations and has an effect on water sources and its resources. Effective involvement of both private and public sectors should improve waste management and provide door-to-door collection, street sweeping and facilitate drainage disposable canals. Therefore, an integrated solid waste management practice should be implemented for the City and also for the surrounding environment. As a result, strong political will, multi-sectoral approach, public awareness and participation, strategic planning, adequate funding and the adoption of Integrated Solid Waste Management is recommended SWM system required in Addis Ababa city.

No abstract