Report: Examples of capacity building cooperation

Odense Waste Management Company Ltd. (OWMC) covers the municipality of Odense having around 185 000 inhabitants. It is a not-for-profit company, in which all services are paid for by the users. OWMC is increasingly participating in international development activities, particularly within training and operational support. This is mainly driven by the staff, who think it is important, interesting, challenging and fun to contribute their know-how elsewhere. The main approach applied, when training and practice is undertaken for OWMC's own staff as well as for international cooperation partners, is to keep things simple and easily understandable, even if there may sometimes be rather complex processes and activities involved. So far, OWMC has in 20032005 participated in a project for the municipalities of Koszalin and Slupsk in Northern Poland, and in 2005-2007 in a project for the newly established solid waste management departments of Beni Suef and El Fashn cities in Egypt. Would it be possible to create a future waste management sector with more know-how sharing mechanisms in place, and might the establishment of a capacity building working group or networking forum, for example, within the framework of ISWA be an important step forward in this context? Why not just start now?.