Facilities management for African urban marketplace

Facilities management (FM) entails enhancing performance of users in a set environment towards optimising organisational targets. It is about managing user behaviour and includes the desire to provide a pleasant experience for the users of the facility in order to improve their performance. The handling of solid waste in the African urban marketplace environment (MPE) is documented to be a significant problem that needs addressing. Furthermore, the attitudes of the market users have been found to exacerbate this problem. The aim of this research was to identify attitudinal change factors to be incorporated in waste management strategies for the MPE. Research indicates that the key FM component in this facility is the environmental management component particularly the effective management of solid waste. In addition, success or failure of this facility hinges on attitudinal actions of the stakeholders towards waste. Data was collected from observations of four African MPEs and a series of semi-structured interviews with stakeholders. Attitudinal change factors identified in this paper include: waste collection frequency and monitoring of the waste management practices. The study reveals that a deeper understanding of marketplace custom and everyday relationship to market space is essential for enhancing waste management practices in the MPE.