Prospects of sustainable waste management in developing countries: A case study from Jordan.

This study examined the key challenges obstructing the sustainable development in the waste management sector in Jordan. A questionnaire was designed and conveyed to stakeholders to collect their perspectives on the key challenges and the waste management data parameters. It was concluded that the most critical challenges are the lack of strict laws and legislation, inefficient management, insufficient financial capacity, the lack of strict laws and regulations, and the lack of public awareness and contribution. Nonetheless, waste management challenges in Jordan could be clustered under three dimensions: limited private sector involvement, weak institutional capacities, and poor community engagement. The inadequacy of waste management data in Jordan was tackled through the design of a simple and innovative databank system, and in accordance with recommendations inferred from the questionnaire. The databank system was developed in a way to guarantee the smooth and sustainable data monitoring and storage, and to allow users to generate daily, monthly, or annual progress reports in a simple manner.

What has Iran achieved in under-five mortality in terms of equity and efficiency in the past decades?

OBJECTIVE: Iran has made remarkable progress in reducing child mortality over the past few decades. However, this promising profile is mainly average driven, and inequalities are not counted in judgments about the progress. In the present study, we used an achievement index approach to combine average and inequalities to provide a better picture of Iran's achievement in under-five mortality over the last two decades. STUDY DESIGN: The study had a cross-sectional design. METHODS: Data gathered in the two recent national demographic health surveys (DHSs) in 2000 and 2010 were used to conduct the analyses. Accordingly, 45,646 live births covered by DHS 2000 and 10,604 live births covered by DHS 2010 were investigated. An achievement index was constructed by incorporating some extensions to the concentration index, namely by incorporation of the average into the index. RESULTS: The standard concentration index showed that under-five mortality was unequally distributed, hurting the poor, across all provinces and Iran overall in 2000 (concentration index = -0.1311 [standard error {SE} = 0.0139]) and 2010 (-0.1367 [SE = 0.0381]). The achievement index revealed that Iran has had achievements in under-five mortality (relative change in the mean has decreased from 29.5% to 25.8%), but the achievement was mostly due to reductions in the average mortality and not in its unequal distribution. The same result applied to a considerable number of provinces, and only a few have made achievements in both inequality and average. CONCLUSIONS: Considering the lack of progress in the reduction of inequalities in under-five mortality over the past decades, equity-oriented policies should be of prime importance for Iran's healthcare system.