The idea underlying the Complementary Local Urban Environmental Services (CLUES) tool is that some cities have reasonably functioning solid waste management services and less functioning faecal sludge management services or vice versa.

CLUES asks the questions: what can waste chains learn from one another in any city and what can we learn comparing these on a more global scale? What is the possible synergy between two waste management chains in a city? In short, the idea is what is needed to get a proper functioning solid waste management system, a proper functioning sanitation system and what criteria apply to make them work successfully together. This idea was conceived at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), WASTE and RWA at more or less the same time.

Next to WASTE having worked extensively on sanitation in cities and developed several tools in support hereof (sanitation decision support tool, the service and value chain etc.), it has a solid track record in working in solid waste management and developed several tools to support the work, such as integrated solid waste management. RWA also worked extensively in solid waste management and developed a benchmarking tool.

This report summaries the tool that was developed and tested in 10 cities. At the same time, we report in brief on the results for each of the 10 cities. For each city a short case study is also available as well as the comprehensive data sheets that back the city case study.