Explore the vast range of titles available.

Transformation and rapid population growth in Africa indicates that urbanisation is one of the key determinants of the future of social dynamics and development of the continent. Linked to these changes are increased production levels of Municipal Solid Waste. This book provides recommendations and solutions that derive from current situations, experiences and observations in Africa. This book is a 'must read' for urban planners, environmental engineering students and lecturers, environmental consultants and policy-makers. The book can also be of great help to municipal authorities, as it outlines future directions of Municipal Solid Waste management. These need to be considered by the municipal authorities of most African countries.

The Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) has produced continent-wide analysis of many aspects of Africa's infrastructure challenge. The main findings were synthesized in a flagship report titled Africa's Infrastructure: a time for transformation, published in November 2009. Meant for policy makers, that report necessarily focused on the high-level conclusions. It attracted widespread media coverage feeding directly into discussions at the 2009 African Union Commission Heads of State Summit on Infrastructure. Although the flagship report served a valuable role in highlighting the main findings of the project, it could not do full justice to the richness of the data collected and technical analysis undertaken. There was clearly a need to make this more detailed material available to a wider audience of infrastructure practitioners. Hence the idea of producing four technical monographs, such as this one, to provide detailed results on each of the major infrastructure sectors, information and communication technologies (ICT), power, transport, and water, as companions to the flagship report. These technical volumes are intended as reference books on each of the infrastructure sectors. They cover all aspects of the AICD project relevant to each sector, including sector performance, gaps in financing and efficiency, and estimates of the need for additional spending on investment, operations, and maintenance. Each volume also comes with a detailed data appendix, providing easy access to all the relevant infrastructure indicators at the country level, which is a resource in and of itself.

Inadequate management of healthcare waste present significant health hazards to healthcare workers, patients, waste handlers, and the whole communities, especially in developing countries. Although various primary studies have been conducted in different countries across the continent, there has been no comprehensive research examining healthcare waste management practices in Sub-Saharan Africa. This review aimed to assess healthcare waste management practices and associated factors among healthcare workers in Sub-Saharan Africa. This systematic review and meta-analysis were performed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA 20) guidelines. PubMed, Science-Direct, Google Scholar, Hinari, and Google databases were used to find essential literature. The extracted data were analyzed using statistical software, STATA version 14. Publication bias was assessed using the Egger test and funnel plot, whereas heterogeneity was assessed using the I2 statistic. This review include 29 studies comprising 7588 participants. The pooled estimate of good healthcare waste management practices among participants was 49.74% (95% CI: 43.73-55.76) (I2 = 96.8%, P < 0.000). Sex, knowledge, training on healthcare waste management, use of working manuals/guidelines, and working hours were factors significantly associated with healthcare waste management practices among healthcare workers., Studies done in South Africa reported the highest good healthcare waste management practices with a value of 54.34% (95% CI: 48.05, 60.63), I2 = 0.00%, P < 0.00. The pooled estimate of good healthcare waste management practices before the occurrences of COVID-19 pandemic was 50.49% (95% CI: 40.7, 60.25), (I2 = 97.9%, P < 0.000). Public health facilities also reported having lower waste management practices with a value of 46.86% (95%CI: 39.33, 54.38%), I2 = 96.8%, P < 0.000. This review showed that only half of the healthcare workers practiced good healthcare waste management practices. Sex of the healthcare workers, training status, use of working manuals/guidelines, knowledge towards healthcare waste management, and their daily working hours were factors significantly associated with healthcare waste management practices among healthcare workers. Hence, respective healthcare authorities should develop and implement different healthcare waste management strategies, including ongoing in-service training, provision of healthcare waste management manuals, and conducting regular monitoring to enhance healthcare workers' knowledge and practices towards healthcare waste management practices.

Introduction Diarrhea is a public health challenge, the leading cause of malnutrition, morbidity, and mortality for children under five years globally. The disease is more common in low and middle-income countries such as Asia and Africa. While several studies were conducted on the prevalence of diarrheal disease among children under five, none of them showed the pooled prevalence of diarrheal disease. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the pooled prevalence and its determinants of diarrhea among children under five in East Africa. Methods We searched articles published between January 01/2020, to October 31/2024, on the prevalence of diarrheal disease among children under five years old using different databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, and Google Scholar. We included studies that were published only in the English language and report the prevalence of diarrhea among children under five in East African countries. To get the total number of children under the age of five in our study, we summed the sample sizes from chosen studies.We checked the quality of each study using the Newcastle Ottawa Scale (NOS) quality assessment scale, and we performed the analysis by random effect model using statistical software STATA version 17 and R version 4.4.2. Result A total of 162,388 children under five years were included in this review. About 93.33% of studies were conducted using cross-sectional study designs. The overall pooled prevalence of diarrhea among children under five in East Africa was 24.6% (95% CI: 22.7%, 26.6%). Improper waste disposal mechanism (OR = 1.67, 95% CI: 1.10, 2.53), large family size (OR = 1.38, 95% CI: 1.10, 1.72), two and above children under five years (OR = 1.6, 95% CI: 1.27, 2.03), unprotected source of water (OR=1.92, 95% CI: 1.39, 2.65), not vaccinated from rotavirus (OR = 2.06, 95% CI: 1.10, 3.85), unprotected toilet type (OR = 1.11, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.21), and households who spent more than thirty minutes to fetch water (OR = 1.35 95% CI: 1.05, 1.73) were risk factors responsible for the prevalence of diarrheal disease among children under five years. Conclusions The pooled prevalence of diarrhea among children under five in East Africa is still at a high level. The finding of this study recommends intervention on family planning initiatives, improving sanitation practices, increasing access to healthcare, providing access to clean water, rotavirus vaccination, and well-established waste disposal mechanisms, which could be the critical issues to reduce the prevalence of diarrheal disease among children under five years.

Background Health care waste management is a challenge due to the composition of the waste generated within a health care facility, of which 85% is domestic waste, and at least 15% is hazardous waste or health care risk waste (has been in contact with blood, body fluids or tissues from humans and could cause disease). In this study, we evaluated the status quo of health care waste management plans (HCWMPs) and practices in public health care facilities in Gauteng Province, South Africa. Methods A situational analysis was employed in health care facilities (HCFs) that generated more than 20 kg ( N  = 42) of health care risk waste (HCRW) per day. Data was collected from officials responsible for the management of health care waste using a self-administered questionnaire whilst Chief Executive Officers/ managers of the HFCs were interviewed. Results The results showed that most (79.0%) of the health care waste officers (HCWOs) as well as management (84.6%) agreed to have HCWMPs in place. The majority (76.9%) of the HCFs have a dedicated person appointed to manage health care waste with the majority (67%) being environmental health practitioners. According to management, only 30.8% have formally appointed an integrated HCW committee. Only 11.7% of the HCWOs are guided by the Occupational Health and Safety Act to develop their HCWMPs with only 20.5% with health care waste minimisation strategies in place. Conclusion The study concluded that there is limited integration of HCWMPs as inadequate health and safety aspects, environmental pollution as well as community participation was reported. The novelty of the study is to contribute to a body of knowledge, information on the establishment of an effective health care waste management system in public health care facilities and for decision-making purposes.

Vultures comprise the most endangered avian foraging guild (obligate scavengers) and their loss from ecosystems can trigger trophic cascades, mesopredator release, and human rabies epidemics, indicating their keystone species status. Vultures’ extremely large home ranges, which often cross international borders of countries that have differing laws and capacity for wildlife conservation, makes conserving them challenging. However, satellite-tracking data can be used to identify habitat preferences and critical sites to target conservation actions. We tracked 16 Egyptian Vultures, Neophron percnopterus, in the Middle East and East Africa. We used dynamic Brownian bridge movement models to calculate home ranges and core-use areas, and we analyzed habitat use in a resource selection framework. Combined summer and winter ranges (99% utilization distributions) of all birds covered 209,800 and 274,300 km2, respectively. However, the core-use areas (50% utilization distributions) in the summer and winter ranges, accounted for only 0.4–1.1% of this area (900 and 3100 km2, respectively). These core-use areas are where the home ranges of multiple individuals overlapped and/or where individuals spent a lot of time, such as feeding and roosting sites, and are places where conservation actions could focus. Resource selection models predicted Egyptian Vulture occurrence throughout little-studied parts of the species’ range in the Middle East and East Africa, and revealed strong selection for proximity to highways, power distribution lines, and towns. While providing roosts (e.g. power pylons) and food (e.g. garbage dumps), anthropogenic features may also function as ecological traps by increasing exposure to electrocution and dietary toxins.

This paper aims to rank environmental variables based on community perception supported by empirical evidence from the rapidly urbanizing secondary city of Debre Birhan, Ethiopia. The study employed questionnaires, determined by Yamane’s formula, for 395 households, site observations, and key informant interviews. The document survey complemented the study’s findings. Triangulation of the Pareto Analysis, Best-Worst Methods, and Principal Component Analysis, with composite Score Loading, was applied to analyze the data. The study also utilized ArcGIS 10.8 software to process to detect land use and land cover dynamics for 2014 and 2024. The results show that inappropriate urban waste management and land expropriation (0.5625) are the top priority environmental variables affecting the city’s and its residents’ well-being, followed by poor implementation of environmentally sensitive land uses (0.3125), including buffer zones, urban parks, and plazas, constituting the city’s urban land use planning element. The third-ranked variable is the lack of urban green spaces and recreation (0.1250), including forests, public squares, playgrounds, and gardens. The variables are within acceptable consistency limits with a ratio of 0.061. These findings are validated through key informant interviews and secondary data, which demonstrate that the ranked variables are critical urban challenges in the city. The broader policy implications of the research encompass resilience, climate change mitigation, and adaptation planning, as well as the introduction of capacity-building measures, participatory governance, and financial models. Thus, local governments should take proactive measures, and the study suggested further research into the complexities of urban environmental dynamics in the rapidly evolving global context.

Based on in-depth fieldwork in three cities, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar and Lusaka, this book provides a critical analysis of the United Nations Sustainable Cities Program in Africa (SCP). Focusing on the SCP's policies for solid waste management, which was identified as the top priority problem by the SCP, the book examines the success of these pilot schemes and the SCP's record in building new relationships between people and government. It argues that the SCP has operated in a political vacuum, without recognition of the long and problematic histories and cultural politics of urban environmental governance in Eastern and Southern Africa. This book brings these cultural and political histories to the fore in its examination of the contemporary dynamics. In doing so, it not only provides an insightful analysis of the policies and outcomes for the SCP, but also puts forward a historically grounded critique of neoliberalism, good governance and sustainable development discourses. Contents: Foreword; Toward a political ecology of African cities; The Sustainable Cities Program and African cities; Dar es Salaam: model city for the world; The mirror that Zanzibar holds up for the world; Lusaka: The years of the rule of money; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index. Garth Andrew Myers is Associate Professor of Geography and African/African-American Studies at the University of Kansas, USA.

The drivers and consequences of unregulated urban expansion processes in Accra, Ghana, are examined together with the associated encroachment upon ecologically sensitive areas in the city’s rapidly growing periphery. Three sites are considered which attracted settlers from vastly different economic segments of the urban population from the 2000s and onwards. A combination of geographical information system (GIS)-based analysis, evidence from a recent household survey, insights from a range of key informant interviews and field observations provide evidence for the dynamics of urban expansion and settlement consolidation. These dynamics wield significant pressure on ecologically sensitive areas, e.g. wetlands, riparian zones and coastal lagoons, which are transformed into housing development through drainage, landfilling, channelling of streams and construction of barriers. Encroachment upon ecologically sensitive areas is associated with intensifying flood hazards. Key impediments are identified for the preservation of ecologically sensitive areas within the specific urban governance context of Accra. Encroachment is not necessarily driven by poverty or low income; it occurs for several socio-economic situations. Governance and enforcement in planning need improvement. Such insights must inform efforts to promote more sustainable trajectories of urban expansion, allowing cities to accommodate rapidly growing populations while preserving ecologically sensitive areas and benefiting from crucial ecosystem services.Policy relevanceCritical impediments exist in planning urban expansion. Insights are provided on why ecologically sensitive areas are not sufficiently protected from urban encroachment. These include the intricacies of regulating land transactions in rural and peri-urban areas before incorporation into the built-up area of the city, the ambivalent and overlapping land administration systems, the strong incentives for traditional authorities to commercialise marginal land, the unfeasibility of policing permanent structures, and the lack of cooperation and coordination among local government entities concerning the management of urban watersheds. Within the urban governance context of Accra, encroachment upon ecologically sensitive areas constitutes a ‘wicked’ planning problem that defies rational, technical solutions and which is fraught with multi-causality, multiple perspectives and diverging interests. Insights into these complexities must inform efforts to promote more sustainable trajectories of urban expansion.

Examines Waste Reuse Urban Farming (WRUF) as a solution for the municipal solid waste problem; includes history, type, and status of traditional urban farming, constraints of WRUF on urban planning, and implementation issues; recommendations. Some focus on composting.