The e-waste conundrum: Balancing evidence from the North and on-the-ground developing countries’ realities for improved management

E-waste is currently the fastest-growing waste stream, posing major global management challenges. One of the unintended outcomes of this growth in the developing world is the increasing presence of informal e-waste recyclers, providing livelihood opportunities, albeit under elevated health-threatening risks and limited protection. Based on a detailed assessment of the context in Ghana, the authors propose a disposal model involving all stakeholders in the development of new state policies for e-waste recycling. Based on the principle of participatory development, the authors posit that the informal sector concentrates on the collection, disassembly and segregation, while the formal sector manages the upstream state-of-the-art processing requiring more capital and technology investment, and expertise. Tackling e-waste management at the two extremes will build a broader consensus for a greener agenda and mitigate the potential environmental pollution embedded in current practices. Although the authors’ model is proposed with reference to the Ghanaian context, it stands a better chance of success and applicability to other developing countries than models that are developed based on developed world experiences.Keywords: E-waste recycling; formal-informal interface; livelihood; waste management; Accr

Downgrading – An overlooked reality in African cities: Reflections from an indigenous neighborhood of Accra, Ghana

African cities contain a range of low-income ethnic and cultural enclaves that defy conventional ‘slum’ typecasts and intervention guidelines. Further, new forms of urbanization (e.g. gated communities and informal settlements) have received heavy emphasis in recent urban geographic research. Such research emphases have many unintended consequences; one of which is that traditional indigenous neighborhoods in the older city are glossed over. This paper focuses on urban downgrading in Korle Gonno, a prominent and established indigenous community in Accra, Ghana. Using mixed-method data (including surveys), the results illustrate that a traditional neighborhood encounters many of the same dimensions of urban poverty as the more famed slums in the city, yet it experiences different poverty trajectories. We argue that the prevailing slum profiling techniques fall short of capturing these trajectories; more nuanced approaches that capture continuity and discontinuity with past and present socioeconomic processes are necessary. Attention must be rebalanced toward understanding the deterioration of these neighborhoods if policymakers, planners and urban theorists are to obtain a comprehensive picture of poverty dynamics and appropriate interventions in African cities. ► Downgrading traditional neighborhoods in African cities are understudied. ► Korle Gonno's residents face similar poverty dimensions as those in informal slums do. ► The magnitude and scale of urban poverty in Accra reaches beyond informal slums. ► Quantitative indicators alone do not capture full extent of urban poverty in Africa. ► City authorities in African cities need more nuanced poverty analysis techniques

Electronic-Waste Circuitry and Value Creation in Accra, Ghana

Based on extensive field research, this chapter assesses electronic-waste processing in Ghana by examining the respective roles of formal and informal enterprises therein. Against this background, recent government efforts to manage e-waste and regularise related industries are reviewed. The authors conclude that government policies are not suitable for the development of this sector and for upgrading e-waste activities, because they largely neglect informals and their critical contribution to the sector. Given the low state of technology available in Ghana and the key role that informal labourers play in e-waste collection and processing, the authors call for a refocus on the informal activities so that informals can operate in better, greener, healthier and safer working conditions that would ultimately produce better outcomes in terms of sustainable development