SEA, Urban Plans and Solid Waste Management in Kenya: Participation and Learning for Sustainable Cities

This paper examines the role of participation and learning in Kenyan strategic environmental assessments (SEAs) of urban plans that include a solid waste management (SWM) component. Two SEA cases were studied using 40 semi-structured interviews and two focus groups. Data are analysed qualitatively employing NVivo software. Participation is assessed using ideal conditions of learning derived from Transformative Learning Theory, and operationalised for this study. Strengths of SEA participation are freedom from coercion and equal opportunity to participate. Notable weaknesses include inaccessibility of SEA documents, inadequate participant funding, and lack of feedback and transparency about the SEA findings. Participants exhibited numerous learning outcomes and associated social actions on urban SWM including waste sorting, recycling and composting (instrumental learning), sharing values and community collaborations on cleanup and recycling (communicative learning), and altering conventional viewpoints from ‘waste for disposal’ to ‘waste as a resource’ (transformative learning), including for livelihood opportunities.