Millennium Project Completion Agency. In advance of compact closure, the GOZ established and funded a subsidiary of the MCA to complete outstanding work and monitor the one-year defects notification period of completed construction projects. Taking into consideration timelines for works completion and the subsequent defect notification period for each contract, the subsidiary has a mandate through November 2020. At compact closure, the subsidiary—named the Millennium Project Completion Agency (MPCA)— was staffed with eight former MCA employees and funded by the GOZ. Outstanding work to be completed following November 2018 under the supervision of MPCA includes significant efforts both on the extension of water and sewer networks, as well as on the replacement of water pipelines and the installation of bulk meters to reduce non-revenue water. It also includes smaller efforts on the final steps of works to improve drainage (e.g., joint sealing, backfilling, installing side drains) and water treatment/distribution (e.g., minor electrical work, testing of installed pipelines, road reinstatement, finishing touches on Chelston Reservoir).
Solid Waste Management Company. The improper disposal of solid waste into the drainage system was recognized as a problem and a contributor to flooding in the city of Lusaka. After the first year of compact implementation, it became clear that operation and maintenance and the sustainability of the drainage investments were inextricably linked to solid waste management (or lack thereof) under the authority of the LCC. Once it was clear that LCC did not have the capacity or political will to improve solid waste management in-house, MCC and MCA made a sustained push to establish a new Solid Waste Management Company and set it up for success after the compact. The decoupling of solid waste management from the LCC and establishing a new Solid Waste Management Company was not envisioned in the original project design or the project logic. MCA provided technical assistance to the Ministry of Local Government and other entities within Zambia to assist in the creation of a Solid Waste Management Company. As of November 2018, the Lusaka Integrated Solid Waste Management Company Limited (LISWMC) was incorporated as a private company in charge of the management of solid waste for Lusaka. LISWMC’s primary business is to conduct private sector outsourcing to provide solid waste collection and cleaning services in the urban and peri-urban areas in Lusaka Province, and to provide related recycling, transfer and disposal services. Following the compact, the GOZ will be responsible for operationalizing the company. Further, GOZ funding in the amount of $6 million to support drain maintenance was provided during the compact period; this funding has been transferred to MPCA to be used post compact for physical drain maintenance as well as for setting up the solid waste management company.
Government passes new law reducing use of plastics. In a demonstration of commitment to improving the management of solid waste, in November 2018 the GOZ issued Statutory Instrument (SI) No. 65 of 2018 through the Ministry of Water Development, Sanitation and Environmental Protection. The SI seeks to restrict, among other things, plastics below 30 microns in thickness, a category that includes the plastic grocery bags that are ubiquitous in Lusaka. It will be enforced by the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA). The SI is associated with the Extended Producer Regulations, which extend producers’ responsibility for their products all the way to the post-consumer phase of the product life cycle, thus allowing the GOZ to manage packaging materials and packaging waste in an environmentally sound manner. The GOZ is currently engaging economic stakeholders; this initiative aligns with the objectives of LISWMC and with appropriate maintenance of the drains within Lusaka.
Innovation Grant Program (IGP). Several Innovation Grant Program (IGP) grantees secured funding from other donors to scale project activities catalyzed by the initial IGP investment. Zambian Breweries leveraged $20,000 in additional funding from the French Embassy to expand their activities and one grantee (MECB) received a grant of $100,000 from The Coca-Cola Africa Foundation to fund expansion and rehabilitation of the water supply network in Jack Compound. This work is part of a broader Memorandum of Understanding that MCC signed with The Coca-Cola Africa Foundation in October 2017. In addition, IGP grantee MECB reports that its IGP project allowed it to receive a grant of 118,000 euros from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland for water quality monitoring. NewTech received assistance in kind from the International Labor Organization and National Institute for Scientific and Industrial Research as well as an organization called Musika, which provided NewTech with equipment that will be paid back over time.
Activities of some IGP grant recipients will continue after the compact and may continue to leverage outside funding. There is also an opportunity to attract models or funding for market-based provision of waterborne sanitation in Mtendere. The activities of grantee Manja Pamodzi and other solid waste grantees sought to catalyze the growth of a private-sector driven solid waste management ecosystem in Lusaka.
Nitrates[[In February 2012, an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) noted elevated levels of nitrate in the groundwater from several borehole wells that are part of LWSC’s supply network. These wells also had microbiological contamination. The ESIA concluded that the nitrate source was pollution from pit latrines and other waste disposal activities. Due to coordination shortcomings at MCC, awareness of potential nitrate contamination challenges was lost until 2017 when an external evaluator, CDC, reported that they had measured elevated levels of nitrate in water supplied by LWSC to some areas of the city.]]. The Coca-Cola Africa Foundation, together with the USAID Water and Development Alliance, is convening a working group including donor and LWSC stakeholders on the issue of nitrate contamination in drinking water in Lusaka. MCA will present the results of household water testing commissioned from the CDC in compact areas, which will continue to bring attention to this under-recognized urbanization issue and encourage LWSC to address it. MCC’s evaluation researchers have demonstrated preliminary results that link the presence of unlined pit latrines to high concentrations of nitrates in the borehole water. These results directly link the lack of adequate sanitation to contamination of drinking water groundwater supply.