Urbanization and sustainable cities in sub-Saharan Africa: the problem of waste management in Bissau and Ziguinchor

Résumé

In sub-Saharan Africa, many cities face urbanization and environmental risks, resulting in part from poor waste management that poses a threat to people's health and well-being. This risk and the potentially generated threats reveal, among other weaknesses, a failure in the management of garbage and waste related to human activities, whether domestic, agricultural, industrial or commercial. In Africa, as elsewhere, there are challenges of efficiency and effectiveness in urban governance that have become a public issue [1]. This article will deal with questions of urbanization in the dawn of the problematic of the sustainable cities, and in particular, the enigmatic issue of waste management in Bissau and Ziguinchor. In both our case studies, the improvement of the living environment is at the heart of any development policy where the issue of sanitation, including waste management, is very often left to the discretion of local and national decision-makers. This situation has led to an obsolescence of technical structures and has led to shortcomings in the technical skills needed to adequately deal with sanitation challenges, without forgetting the prohibitive costs involved.