Africa’s waste management conundrum

Poor waste management systems exacerbate further urban issues, such as flooding, environmental pollution and degradation, health and climate crisis. This report offers vital data and insights that contribute to changing our relationship with waste and setting us on a course to better understand and build a productive, safe waste economy, and a healthy environment for all.”

Kobie Brand, Regional Director, ICLEI Africa

The decisions we make about solid waste today will determine the wellbeing of our communities in the future. In many African cities, inadequate sorting and waste collection systems lead to poor waste disposal methods, including widespread dumping and burning. There isn’t nearly enough data collected to demonstrate the amount of value that is lost to poor waste management - but it is estimated that Africa is losing approximately $8 billion USD in the form of valuable resources, due to inadequate waste management (UNEP, 2018). Sustainably managed waste therefore represents an urgent opportunity not only for environmental and human health but for economic development. 

The Lloyd’s Register Foundation report, A World of Waste: risks and opportunities in household waste management, offers us an opportunity to engage with the realities of our continent’s waste management conundrum. Most notably, it contributes perspectives from residents at the household level: the very people who touch the waste and are expecting a form of waste management service. It offers valuable survey data which can complement city-level and national statistics to inform policy and justify the urgent need for practical waste management interventions. Its unique stance on global estimates of household waste management offers further insights into local waste management challenges by bringing to the fore perspectives at the interface where consumer goods become waste. Residents are the ones experiencing negative impacts of flooding, disease and environmental pollution, outcomes of a limited waste management system. These perspectives remind us that any proposed waste intervention should consider insights from residents as a vital perspective to inform interventions in the waste management system.

Having been asked to reflect on how the report resonates with Southern African experiences, we find much resonance in the findings, but most importantly, welcome the evidence and perspectives into a growing pool of data and insights that can provide systemic insights to guide sustainable waste management.

ICLEI Africa works with local governments who are faced with similar challenges mentioned in the report including inadequate waste management infrastructure, limited financing or inclusion in municipal budgets, competing government priorities, inadequate legislative frameworks, and engrained behaviours that normalise (improper) disposal and complicate waste management efforts. Despite these challenges,  local governments within the ICLEI Africa network are eager to pursue meaningful solutions for waste management and are seeking answers for how to design effective waste systems and empower individuals to take on waste management as a priority themselves, keeping in mind that they will not undertake activities such as waste separation at the household level without the adequate infrastructure being available. This represents a larger tension of how to get buy-in and build legitimacy of a waste management system, while still building waste management infrastructure. It also leads to an important question ‘How can we position waste as a part of larger urban solutions?’

The report offers strategic policy implications that demand attention, such as improving recycling infrastructure, increasing uptake and improving quality of household waste separation, significant infrastructure investment, increased frequency of household waste collection, and the elimination of harmful waste disposal practices like open dumping and open burning of waste. The policy implications reinforce good practices on how to improve waste management systems.

ICLEI Africa sees its role as a key actor at the local government scale in supporting local authorities to contextualise these policy implications to their existing institutional frameworks and local needs, and in relation to their available financial resources. As noted, the report provides rich data and perspectives at the household level; this is key as most African cities continue to grapple with the persistent lack of waste management data, yet lack clear data to inform decision-making through evidence. Reports, such as this, help to build a worldview on using data to support decision-making and make the case for directing resources to fill data gaps in this sector. More information from different perspectives, gathered through different methodologies, allows for richer collective sense-making to improve cities’ waste management systems.

ICLEI Africa looks forward to sharing the insights from this report with its membership, deepening the conversations on waste management, and spurring the urgent action that is needed to address the impacts of poor waste management and the many intertwined development opportunities.