Latest IEA data show that 730 million people worldwide still lacked access to electricity in 2024, a decline of only 11 million from 2023. This pace is slower than the annual progress achieved before the pandemic and confirms the IEA’s earlier estimates. Preliminary 2025 data suggest the trend will continue. Progress remains fragile. In many sub-Saharan African countries, population growth continu...

Key factsAround 2.1 billion people worldwide (around a third of the global population) cook using open fires or inefficient stoves fuelled by kerosene, biomass (wood, animal dung and crop waste) and coal, which generates harmful household air pollution.Household air pollution was responsible for an estimated 3.2 million deaths per year in 2020, including over 237 000 deaths of children under the a...

Providing effective solid waste management (SWM) is essential to tackle plastics pollution, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avoid other potentially harmful impacts, including local air pollution impacts from open burning and the conditions that spread disease. Official development finance (ODF) plays a key role in providing SWM waste infrastructure and services. International cooperation is al...

This document contains practical examples of good waste management practices in various municipalities in South Africa. The focus is specifically on good practice for domestic and commercial waste.The toolkit aims to cover good practices in each of the stages of waste management, from the point of collection through transport, storage and treatment to final disposal. The principles of the waste hi...

This paper addresses a major problem in international solid waste management, which is twofold: a lack of data, and a lack of consistent data to allow comparison between cities. The paper presents an indicator set for integrated sustainable waste management (ISWM) in cities both North and South, to allow benchmarking of a city’s performance, comparing cities and monitoring developments over time. ...

The open burning of waste continues to be a major waste management challenge for many African local governments. This challenge is primarily attributed to the lack of adequate waste management solutions, further exacerbated by a lack of knowledge about the environmental, social and economic disadvantages of burning waste.This guide is a tool designed for local government authorities to mitigate op...

South Asia Unites to End Open Waste Burning: Kathmandu Declaration finalisedOn 6-7 September 2025, the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) and Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) held a high-level regional policy dialogue in Kathmandu, Nepal, where participants adopted the Kathmandu Declaration on Transformative Action to End Open Burning of Waste in South Asia.In a major strid...

The sustainable solid waste management strategy and action plan for Vientiane 2021-2030 (“The strategy”) presents a vision, six strategic outcomes, medium and long-term targets, and an associated work plan to improve the waste sector. It also lays out a basic framework for a paradigm shift from waste management toward resource management approaches that can eventually maximize waste-to-resource op...

The Circular Plastics Institute (CPI) at KSBL, in collaboration with key academic and institutional partners, convened a workshop to address the critical issue of open burning of municipal solid waste (MSW) in Pakistan. The workshop presented findings from the project Mapping of Open Burning of MSW in Pakistan & Identification of Underlying Factors & Key Drivers, focusing on Karachi and La...

A Step by Step Guide to Assess a City’s Municipal Solid Waste Management Performance through SDG indicator 11.6.1 Monitoring.Waste Wise Cities Tool (WaCT) guides readers through 7 steps to collect data on municipal solid waste (MSW) generated, collected, and managed in controlled facilities. The tool provides a household survey guide for total MSW generation, a questionnaire to identify the MSW re...