Asociacion para la Promocion de Nuevas Alternativas de Desarrollo

The Municipalities of Panama define their priorities

Between September 21 and October of 2001, 5 Mayors, Presidents of Municipal and Director of Municipal Cleanliness of 32 Municipalities of Panama were qualified by APRONAD (Association for the Promotion of New Alternatives of Development) in the management environmentally sustainable of the municipal solid waste. Officials of the Ministry of Health (MINSA) also participated and the National Authority of the Environmental (ANAM). The activity was carried out in the mark of the National Environmental Program (PAN) that ANAM executes with the financing of the Interamerican Bank of Development (IDB).

The specific objectives were the following ones:

a) to Qualify the mayors, presidents of municipal advice and directors of municipal cleanliness about the importance of the conformation of the Municipal Units of Administration of the Solid Waste (UMGERS in spanish).

b) to Qualify the participants in technical procedures for the selection of appropriate places for the construction of sanitary landfill, the organization of recycled programs and the development of plans of environmental education dedicated to promote the civic participation.

c) to Guide the participants in the identification of municipal projects in administration of urban solid waste.

To reach these objectives, 3 Seminars were programmed, which approached the following main topics:

a) The Integrated Management of the Solid Waste: Basic concepts.

b) System of urban cleaning

c) Legal, institutional, cultural Aspects, of the municipal management of the solid waste

The participants were qualified in legal and institutional aspects on the management of the domiciliary solid waste. An analysis of the environmental and sanitary legislation was presented, with base in a summary of texts.

The aspects approached during the seminar referred specifically to administrative concession contracts, decrees of the mayor and systems of environmental report for the Corregidors

During the Seminars the participants were interrogated the municipal priorities were in the relative thing to the administration of the solid waste about which.

The key of the success to solve the problem of the solid waste in Panama resides in the technical, financial and administrative of the Municipalities, by means of its direction of urban cleanliness
or with the creation of Municipal Units of Administration of Solid waste (UMGERS in spanish)

The local authorities and municipal officials of cleanliness granted a preponderant importance to the habits and the population's attitudes (53%), which are expressed in the resistance to pay the rate of cleanliness, with that which the system of cleanliness becomes untenable, causing big deficit in the item of cleanliness. Additionally, you has generalized the practices of burning the waste in the the houses and inside of the quarters, the indiscriminate burial, the "botaderos" (deposit) to open sky and the deposit of the waste in rivers, gulches and beaches

In second place (31%) the concern of the Municipalities makes reference to the absence of sanitary landfillers. With the exception of “Hill Patacón” located in the capital city, the municipalities transfer the waste, to which is incinerated periodically, to "botaderos" to open sky, all them saturated. These "botaderos", for the urban growth is located now in the periphery of the cities, and they are the reason of growing protests on the part of the affected communities.

In third (12%) and fourth place (4%), the local authorities considered as important problems the lack of trucks for the gathering and the lack of personal, respectively. As a result of these data we can conclude:

	All Municipality should have a Plan of Administration of Urban Solid waste, from its generation until the final disposition in a sanitary way, with integral vision. Either that he/she lends the service directly or it offers it by means of private companies. It is necessary to organize, to plan, to supervise and to lend the service (when it corresponds) of urban public cleaning.
	To guarantee the sustainable financing by means of the convincing of the citizenship of to pay the rate of cleanliness on time and/or to adjust at real costs.
	To promote the environmental education in the educational centers and the schools. To promote the social participation and the institutional coordination by means of the creation of Environmental Committees.
	To elaborate a specific legal mark that can be applied with the support of the Corregidors.
	To clean up and to eradicate the biggest and old accumulations in urban solid waste by means of the realization of Community Days of Cleaning.
	To guarantee the financial sostenibility of the system by means of the fixation of real rates of cleanliness.
	To eliminate the “impunity” by means of the adoption of normative specific (Ordinances of the Major) and their strict application.

For further information: Francisco Rivas, e-mail apronad@yahoo.com . Tel. (507) 264-2940 http://espanol.geocities.com/apronad