Socio-environmental entrepreneurship and the provision of critical services in informal settlements

What is it about?

Youth socio-environmental entrepreneurs in Kisumu, Kenya are using their on-the-ground knowledge and local connections to provide waste management services to informal communities, who have been neglected by formal municipal waste management services. These young, small waste management businesses work to clean up informal neighbourhoods, thereby improving living conditions in poor communities, while forging job opportunities for locals.

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Why is it important?

While these youth-led small businesses may disincentivize municipalities to provide local formalized waste-management services to informal communities which they are supposed to, these socio-environmental businesses work with what they have in order to improve residents’ living conditions immediately. Without the work of these young entrepreneurs, informal communities would be without a waste management service of any sort. The living conditions and health of residents in informal neighbourhoods would decline if not for the resourcefulness and ingenuity of these youth entrepreneurs. Sustainable and long term solutions to the waste management issue in Kisumu, other cities in Kenya and across the global South can be imagined as community-government partnerships, labeled as co-production. This way, city residents of all backgrounds are ensured a safe and healthy living environment, and decentralized waste management systems can account for the differing needs of communities.