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

Like many large cities in the Global South, Addis Ababa and Faisalabad have struggled to improve their solid waste management (SWM) systems. The political economy of the sector, alongside local attitudes towards waste work, creates a complex governance environment in which solutions are far from obvious. This article traces social, political and institutional change in the SWM systems of the two cities through a comparative, interdisciplinary analysis anchored in three governance arenas: institutional and policy frameworks, the roles and agency of key actors, and everyday waste practices. Despite substantial institutional differences, we find that service levels and waste workers’ livelihoods are similar. While both cities have moved towards an integrated approach to SWM, imported principles and best practices have not been adequately contextualised. Addressing governance disconnects will depend less on technical fixes than on the public authorities’ ability to enable place-based, constructive interaction between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ actors and practices.