Overview

Cities in Sub-Saharan Africa have been witnessing rapid increases of waste quantities as well as complexities due to growing populations and changing consumption patterns.

Managing this waste is a fundamental basic service and crucial factor in climate change mitigation.

To strengthen the network and to steer further elaboration of projects which had been the result of the practitioners´ workshop „From Waste to Resource – Planning for Integrated Solid Waste Management in Sub-Saharan African Cities” in April this year, Connective Cities organised a follow-up workshop in Nairobi, Kenya. Around 25 waste management practitioners from Lesotho, D.R. Congo, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Germany, the majority having participated in the previous workshop, attended the three-day event from 02-04 December.

Keynotes

Results

Success stories and persisting challenges were shared among the group in a first presentation round that served to recap the cities´ action plans and developments having occurred in the meantime. A trilateral cooperation of representatives from Leribe (Lesotho), Gweru (Zimbabwe) and eThekwini (South Africa) for example has resulted in the creation Leribe´s first Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan, recently approved by Council and supported by the country´s Ministry of Local Government.

Taking a step further in the process, the follow-up event aimed at fostering planning capacities to support the application of substantive know-how available among the network. Participants had prioritised one particular project per city to be elaborated in the course of the workshop. The initiatives comprised of a range from policy frameworks to waste-to-energy, composting for household waste reduction and community-based recycling. In a peer-to-peer-advisory approach, small groups scrutinised the project plans and applied a range of planning tools, (e.g. logical framework, phase model, monitoring and evaluation) to identify missing elements, entry points and needs for reorganisation to ensure desired effects. Alongside the particular projects, discussions reflected that significant and comprehensive shifts in governance and technical solutions are needed to sustainably impact on the waste management challenges within the respective cities. Therefore, participants agreed to continue collaborating towards innovation in the sector. Connective Cities plans to facilitate the network activities through its tools and services.