The parameters found by the first author’s visits to the cities allowed creating a questionnaire (Appendix A) that has been used to
systematize gathered information before 2009 and to obtain new
data about waste management systems in cities up to 2011. It contains 122 questions of which 74 are measured on a five-point Likert-type scale with anchors ranging from never, none, very bad (1)
to always, all, excellent (5) (Matell and Jacoby, 1971), as values of
actual measurements (5 questions), binary scale (Yes/No) (22
questions) (Ekere et al., 2009) and general information (21 questions).The literature review from 2005 to 2011 allowed to validate
some of the parameters used in the tool as well as to introduce others not reported during the reviewed years.
Prior to data collection the questionnaire was pre-tested for
ease of understanding and content validity. A group of stakeholders from 8 municipalities (3 in South Africa, 2 in Indonesia, 1 in
Peru, 1 in Kenya, 1 in Philippines) in 5 different countries in 3 continents were asked to criticize the questionnaire for ambiguity,
clarity and appropriateness of the items used to operationalize
each construct. The respondents were also requested to assess
the extent to which the factors sufficiently addressed the topics
investigated. Based on the feedback received, the instrument was
modified accordingly and used to collect information about the
state of waste management in the cities.
Due to the amount of information, constructs were prepared
from the raw data