Political (in)visibility and governance disconnects: dealing with waste in Addis Ababa and Faisalabad

As many other large cities of the Global South, Addis Ababa and Faisalabad have struggled with improving their solid waste management (SWM) systems. The political economy of this sector alongside local attitudes towards waste work create a complex governance environment where solutions are far from obvious. To trace social, political and institutional change in the SWM systems of these cities, our comparative analysis followed an interdisciplinary approach anchored in three key governance arenas: the institutional and policy frameworks that have been set up to tackle the problem, the role and agency of the various actors involved, and the actual practices of dealing with waste. Despite substantial institutional differences between the cities, our findings show that the level of service delivered to users and the lives and livelihoods of waste workers are analogous. Both come remarkably close to adopting an integrated approach to SWM. However, without a detailed understanding of the place-based socio-economic and politico-cultural features of these SWM systems, imported principles or best practices cannot be properly contextualised. As complex human systems, successfully addressing the governance disconnects in the SWM setups of Addis Ababa and Faisalabad will not hinge on better technical solutions. Rather, it will depend on the responsible authorities’ ability to create an environment where existing ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ practices and actors can coexist and interface with one another in mutually beneficial ways.