The Challenge
There is a global waste crisis: Every year, the world generates over 2.0 billion metric tons of municipal waste—a number set to surge by 73 percent to 3.88 billion metric tons by 2050. Managing this surge is a major challenge for cities in low and middle-income countries.
Globally, 23 percent of waste goes uncollected, and 33 percent is openly dumped. In low-income countries the issue is even more acute: 60 percent of solid waste remains uncollected, and 93 percent is improperly managed – either dumped, buried, or thrown into waterways.
Without action, the volume of improperly managed waste will continue to increase, harming human health, the environment, and economies in a multitude of ways. Uncollected waste, open dumping and burning, and unsanitary landfills contaminate drinking water, pollute air and spread diseases. Solid waste and plastics can clog street drains and storm water evacuation infrastructure, further exacerbating the risk of urban flooding. Moreover, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from waste are large and growing quickly. Municipal solid waste is responsible for up to 20 percent of global human-related methane emissions and 5 percent of GHG emissions. The effect of land-based solid waste extends to the ocean: 80 percent of plastic in oceans comes from poorly managed municipal solid waste on land, with devastating effects on marine environments and ecosystems.
Approach
To tackle the multi-faceted challenges posed by solid waste, investment and policy reforms are crucial. Extensive knowledge and experience on proper waste management—spanning minimization to post-consumer use—can be adapted to local and regional contexts. Effective approaches for waste collection, processing, and treatment include recycling, composting, landfill gas management, energy recovery, and environmentally sound disposal. To be most effective, these approaches also require stronger governance with reliable systems for managing solid waste.
To tackle growing waste generation, improve collection rates, and reduce mismanagement, the World Bank supports low- and middle-income countries through approaches that bring together financing, knowledge, and capacity-building.
As the largest financer of municipal solid waste management, the World Bank Group provided US$5.13 billion—equivalent to about 35 percent of global official development financing for solid waste management from 2003 to 2021. By combining infrastructure financing with policy loans and results-based payments, this support helps in enhancing local health, economic growth, and resilience while cutting GHG emissions and plastic pollution.
The World Bank also contributes vital knowledge to the sector, conducting unique research to guide policy and investments. The What a Waste series offers comprehensive data on global waste trends, supporting analytics and academic research, and serves as the primary data source for the waste management sector globally. The report on Bridging the Gap in Solid Waste Management provides practical guidance on solid waste management governance to national and local authorities. Another report, Results Based Financing for Solid Waste Management: Results and Lessons from the World Bank-Financed Projects, showcases how blending infrastructure investments with results-based financing improves solid waste management outcomes. The Municipal Solid Waste Cost Calculation Technical Guidelines for Low and Middle-Income Countries discusses good practices for calculating investment and operating costs in the solid waste management sector. Together, these publications have reached hundreds of thousands of practitioners, researchers, and government officials, contributing to the global body of knowledge and experience in organizing and managing municipal solid waste toward better resource utilization.
The World Bank helps strengthen institutional and technical capabilities through training, workshops, and strategic guidance for implementing effective waste management practices. Projects often include capacity support for local governments to improve waste collection, treatment, and disposal while implementing incentives for measurable results.
Results: 2003-2024
The World Bank has helped countries to improve municipal waste management infrastructure and services, strengthen institutions, enhance financial sustainability and social inclusion, through a range of pathways. For example:
World Bank-financed projects have supported improved waste management infrastructure and services. In Nepal, between 2013 and 2017, the Output-Based Aid for Municipal Solid Waste Management Project, helped expand waste collection services to 120,000 households, increasing coverage to 70 percent in five participating cities (Dhankuta, Ghorahi, Lalitpur, Pokhara, and Tansen). Dhankuta municipality received the “Cleanest Municipality in Nepal” award in 2017. In Tanzania, between 2010 and 2020, the Strategic Cities Project delivered seven sanitary landfills (the first to be created in Tanzania), solid waste equipment, 277 waste collection points, and substantial capacity building for the participating cities. These efforts improved collection and disposal systems, dramatically expanding access to formal, regular solid waste management services for urban residents. By project close, 85 percent of waste was being disposed of at sanitary landfills compared to zero disposal at project onset. In China, the Ningbo Municipal Solid Waste Minimization and Recycling Project used results-based payments to improve waste segregation and recycling, benefiting 905,000 households. The project exceeded its target by 130 percent, with 193,200 metric tons of separated kitchen waste collected annually between 2013 and 2020.
World Bank-supported capacity building has helped strengthen institutions for solid waste management and governance, enabling countries and cities to expand service coverage and improve effective management. For example, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Solid Waste Management Projects helped establish a legal and institutional framework and a regional approach to solid waste management. To achieve economies of scale and address dispersed administrative structures, municipalities were clustered into eight intermunicipal boards to oversee regional landfills. Solid waste management coverage significantly expanded, reducing the unserved population from 75 percent in 2008 to 34 percent in 2017, benefiting 1.5 million urban residents. In Morocco, Municipal Solid Waste Sector Development Policy Loans improved municipal solid waste governance by establishing clear legal, regulatory, and institutional frameworks and promoting inter-municipality cooperation. National waste collection coverage rose from 44 percent in 2008 to 96 percent in 2021. A new support program, approved in 2025, will use results-based payments to enhance composting, recycling, service management, and passage of Waste Laws.
Enhancing financial sustainability is also critical to ensuring that municipalities can continue to implement and expand their services. In the West Bank and Gaza, the Gaza Solid Waste Management Project, linked payments to better fee collection and cost recovery ratios. As a result, the fee collection ratio was maintained at 80 percent even after the project ended, improving the financial sustainability of the operation and maintenance of the new waste management infrastructure. This benefited nearly 1 million people, diverting more than 600,000 metric tons of waste from unregulated dumping to a new sanitary landfill from 2019 to 2022. In Mexico, the Monterrey Waste Management and Carbon Offset Project generated and sold more than 1 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (mtCO2e) of certified emission reductions. This provided an additional revenue stream to support the investment and operations of the landfill-to-energy project between 2005 and 2017. Across seven municipalities of Monterrey city, over 730,000 people benefited from reduced methane emissions, as well as from a clean and cheaper source of electricity. The project in Monterrey received carbon credit payments through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol in multiple phases. The model has been replicated across Mexico.
Finally, improving social inclusion is vital to ensuring that the benefits of improved services extend to all. Since waste workers often hail from marginalized communities, improving their ability to participate in economic activity in more formal ways can also boost inclusion. In Liberia, the Monrovia Cheesemanburg Landfill and Urban Sanitation Project helped improve social inclusion: It strengthened community-based enterprises and the city corporations, while linking payments to targets for female street sweepers and waste pickers. Over the past decade, Liberia has faced severe challenges, including massive floods, disease outbreaks such as Ebola, measles, and army worm; rising inflation and extreme poverty—all, while grappling with the lingering effects of civil wars. Despite a very challenging context, the project maintained primary and secondary waste collection, collecting over 700,000 metric tons of waste and benefiting nearly 700,000 people (of whom half were women), between 2017 and 2024. Additionally, 121 female street sweepers and waste pickers benefited from skills development focused on waste handling and health and safety issues. Results based payments supported a community cleanliness campaign encouraging waste reduction, reuse, and recycling. A total of 192 low-income and underserved communities participated, with 24 winning cleanliness awards that provided further funding for community projects such as water wells, latrines, power connections, street lighting, and cleaning equipment. The project also engaged regularly with schools, churches, and public spaces to promote hygiene and sanitation awareness.
Graphs and Data Visualization
- Key message: The World Bank Group is the largest financer of solid waste management, providing 35 percent of global official development financing (US$5.13 billion) in the 2003–2021 period.
- Key Message: There is a growing waste crisis. Globally, waste generation is expected to rise by a whopping 73% to 3.88 billion metric tons by 2050, posing serious challenges for cities in low- and middle-income countries.
- Key message: Rising incomes and rapid urbanization go hand-in-hand with higher waste generation. Waste generation in low-income countries is projected to triple by 2050 as a result.
- Key message: On a per capita basis however, projected waste generation in low-income countries would be a third of that in high-income countries, projected at only 0.62 kgs per person per day in low-income countries, compared to 1.81 kgs per person per day in high-income countries by 2050.
Collaborating across the World Bank Group
The World Bank Group is collaborating across the institution to deliver innovative and wholesale approaches to solid waste management.
In 2023, the IFC provided the first ever sustainability-linked loan for the waste management sector, to Orizon VR, a waste treatment and recovery company in Brazil. The loan of BRL 130 million (About US$ 27.35 million) is helping to finance the construction of Latin America’s largest mechanized material recovery facility, in the state of Pernambuco, along with the expansion of two leachate treatment plants in the state of Rio de Janeiro, and capital investments for three of Orizon’s sanitary landfills.
An example of MIGA’s contribution to solid waste management includes issuing guarantees of €97 million in 2019, to cover equity investments for the Serbia Waste-to-Energy project. The project involves the construction and operation of a new waste management facility in Belgrade. This facility can process up to 340,000 metric tons of waste per year and use this waste to generate up to 29 Megawatt of electricity (Mwe) and provide up to 56 Megawatt of thermal heat (MWth) to the local district heating company.
In 2024, the World Bank Treasury issued the $100 million Plastic Waste Reduction-Linked Bond. The bond raised US$14 million to finance two plastic waste collection and recycling projects in Indonesia and Ghana, providing investors with a return linked to plastic and carbon credits generated by the projects. This will help collect about 230,000 metric tons of plastic waste, recycle 180,000 metric tons, and reduce 100,000 tons of CO2e emissions over a 10-year period.
World Bank Group Contribution
The World Bank Group contributed US$5.13 billion in official development finance (IDA and IBRD financing) for municipal solid waste management projects between 2003 and 2021. To date, IFC has committed more than US$1.5 billion to waste management projects around the world, with a focus on projects that enable value creation from waste, working with both municipalities and leading private sector clients.
In addition, the World Bank manages multi-donor trust funds that provide additional resources for solid waste management. For example, the Global Partnership for Results-Based Approaches (GPRBA) offers between US$3 to US$6 million in results-based grants per project; the City Climate Finance Gap Fund provides cities early-stage technical assistance, and PROBLUE provides funding to transition to a more circular economy, to tackle ocean plastics committing US$50 million to 100 activities thus far. Historically, the first generation Kyoto Carbon Funds provided US$196 million in results-based payments for 25 projects between 2010–2020.
Partnerships
The World Bank collaborates with a diverse range of partners to help countries and cities achieve impactful results. This includes working with city networks and alliances such as the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (GCOM), Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), and the City Climate Finance Leadership Alliance (CCFLA).
Additionally, the World Bank partners with United Nations agencies active in the areas of solid waste management and resource efficiency, including the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). Professional organizations such as the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) and the Alliance to End Plastic Waste are also key partners.
The Global Platform for Sustainable Cities (GPSC) is another significant collaborator, instrumental for knowledge creation and capacity building. Furthermore, the World Bank engages with academia and policy institutes such as the University of Leeds, Imperial College, and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES). These collaborations enable the World Bank to leverage expertise, resources, and innovative solutions to address complex environmental challenges and promote sustainable development.
Looking Ahead
Moving forward, the World Bank will continue assisting low- and middle-income countries to create and adopt integrated, locally tailored solid waste management strategies, policy reform and investment. This includes prioritizing waste reduction, recycling, resource recovery, and sanitary disposal while strengthening policies, institutions, infrastructure, financial sustainability, community engagement, and social inclusion of informal waste pickers and women.
Expanding international cooperation and financing for solid waste management will be crucial. Global initiatives like the Global Plastics Treaty, Methane Abatement Pledge, and Paris Agreement offer opportunities to advance sustainable waste management, improving health, economic development, environmental resilience, and livable cities.
Key Words
Urban development, municipal solid waste management, results-based financing, performance payments, climate change, climate mitigation, climate adaptation.
Multimedia
Gaza Solid Waste Management Project VIDEO
Tanzania Solid Waste Mapping VIDEO
China Ningbo municipal solid waste minimization and recycling project VIDEO
What a Waste 2.0 VIDEO
Mexico Waste Management and Carbon Offset Project VIDEO
