‘ReCycling’ in a Mozambican city

Policy brief Jan 2026 Sustainable Growth, Cities, Secondary cities and Waste

Recycling in sub-Saharan Africa is constrained by a coordination failure: households have little incentive to separate waste when collection is unreliable; potential collectors do not operate where recyclables are scarce.

A low-cost intervention in Quelimane, Mozambique's sixth-largest city, mobilised informal bicycle-taxi drivers as waste collectors. Early results suggest that modest, locally grounded interventions can shift cities out of low-recycling equilibria.