Citizen Engagement Circumvented: An Analysis of Liquid Waste Information/Knowledge, Control and Environmental Policy Perspectives in Harare, Zimbabwe

Abstract

Evidence of the socio-political and economic impacts of liquid waste at the global level is rapidly emerging as an important new field of study in the twenty-first century, as testified by the works of Gandy, Reid, Barnes, Alley and Zimmer on the politics and history of liquid waste. This evidence is increasingly being considered by scholars from multidisciplinary backgrounds (Economic History, Water Engineering, Biology, Geography and Environmental Science), who focus on different types of liquid wastes, wastewater, sewage control and waste management. However, whilst the work on environmental forewarnings by Kwiatkowska and Holland plausibly notes that 'modern environmental consciousness was slow to form', its reflections may be extended to include information and education as a management tool and as a catalyst for speeding up awareness/consciousness levels in the policy formulation and practice processes. This article proffers an economic history analysis of citizen perception to encapsulate major forces on how citizen engagement on liquid waste management - emphasising information and education - was circumvented by influential decision-makers in Zimbabwe from 1980 to 2016. There was a lot of political change and scientific advancement throughout this era. Whilst this is quite a lengthy time, it is used to flag enough about decision making or policy perspectives in liquid waste management. The paper does so by analysing common longitudinal trends, using different methods, to give the 36-year period reasonable treatment. The overall aim of the paper is to use environmental policy and education perspectives on liquid waste control and society's responses (and attitudes) to them to identify and understand the major policy constraints and the environmental impact of liquid waste on Zimbabwean urban society, based on the case study selected of the capital city, Harare.