Key words: solid waste management, participation, inclusive governance, informal waste sector, modernization, Ghana

"Evidence-based pathway for solid waste modernisation and sustainability in Ghana"

For more than four decades, cities in Ghana have been struggling to increase solid waste collection coverage, improve disposal systems, and divert recyclables from disposal. Solid waste governance systems have been characterized by lack of realistic policy frameworks and the absence of inclusive governance and financial sustainability principles.

The field studies and participatory action research approaches reported in this thesis are based on four years of consultation with relevant stakeholders to deliver an improved solid waste management (SWM) system. The main goal has been to understand the system and chart a potential pathway for sustainable modernisation that is rooted in local circumstances and jointly created by multiple actors. Stakeholders acting as working groups have assessed the SWM system, developed, prioritised, implemented and evaluated locally appropriate interventions using the integrated sustainable waste management framework as a lens to modernise the system.