Circular Built Environments in Africa

Africa has some of the world’s fastest-growing populations and rates of urbanisation. Cities in many areas are struggling to keep pace with this growth, resulting in mushrooming informal settlements with no, or limited, electricity, water, sanitation connections and solid waste collection. Governments, the private sector and communities themselves, are trying to address this situation but the scale of the problem and limited resources, means that conventional approaches will take many years to address backlogs. It is, therefore, important that innovative, alternative approaches are explored. Circular economy methodologies represent a valuable alternative approach that leapfrogs conventional solutions to improve services and environments rapidly and cost-effectively while creating employment and enterprises and reducing waste and pollution. This report, therefore, explores circular economy opportunities within the construction sectors in Africa with a particular focus on Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia and South Africa. It provides an overview of the current context and characteristics of the sector including, rapid urban growth, significant infrastructure and service backlogs, a diverse and poorly regulated construction industry and a large informal sector. Within this context, circular economy approaches are proposed and discussed and recommendations for policy development and further research made. The study shows that there are significant challenges in the African built environment and construction sector. Rapid growth and limited capacity have meant that infrastructure and service backlogs are increasing and significant proportions of urban populations have to resort to the informal sector for their livelihoods and accommodation. Out-of-date and fragmented policy and regulatory frameworks, as well as, limited implementation and enforcement capacity, has resulted in unregulated and sometimes dangerous and unhealthy living and working environments. At the same time, there is a diverse and resilient tradition of indigenous construction in Africa which create comfortable affordable buildings from local materials using local labour without generating waste. The informal sector has also proven to be responsive and resilient and enabled many communities to live and work in a wide range of environments. A review of the challenges and the strengths of existing and emerging practices can be used to identify significant opportunities to integrate circular economy approaches within the built environment and construction sectors in Africa. These opportunities include enhancing standards of construction and maintenance, avoiding early obsolescence and ensuring the right-to-repair, increasing upcycling and recycling of building materials and components, creating simpler locally sourced buildings, enhancing informal economy processes, developing waste micro-grids and supporting local organic waste recycling and soil fertility.