Municipal Solid Waste Management in Zambian Cities, 2018 to 2023: Pilots, Impacts and Lessons Through the TownLoop Framework

Abstract

Between 2018 and 2023 Zambia put in place its first dedicated law for solid waste, the Solid Waste Regulation and Management Act No. 20 of 2018, and began turning it into working systems in its cities. This paper reviews that experience in Lusaka, in the Copperbelt cities of Ndola and Kitwe, and in a group of smaller provincial towns, using only evidence published before 2024. It reads the Zambian record through the TownLoop framework, a locally financed, closed loop resource recovery model built for small and secondary African cities. The fit is close, partly because Lusaka's Manja Pamodzi scheme is one of the cases from which TownLoop was drawn. A separate chapter compares how Ghana and Zambia put zoned private and community collection into practice, drawing on the documented experience of Accra and Tamale alongside Lusaka and Ndola. The evidence shows clear institutional progress in Zambia: a purpose built law, a dedicated Lusaka utility, collection zones served by community enterprises and franchise contractors, and a visible recycling chain. It also shows the weaknesses the framework predicts. Collection reached only about a third of the capital's waste, payment and verification were thin, the incentive still rewarded tonnage over coverage, the work was heavily donor funded, the organic half of the stream went to landfill rather than to compost, and the model spread slowly beyond Lusaka. The paper closes by turning TownLoop's mechanisms into recommendations for the next phase of reform.