The City of Cape Town has secured global recognition after being named one of the winners of the Bloomberg Mayor’s Challenge 2025, an international competition that rewards cities developing bold solutions to complex urban issues.

Backed by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the award includes $1m (about R16m) in funding to scale innovative waste-management initiatives focused on informal settlements.

“We are most appreciative of this prize money and support, and we will use the money to scale up our pilot project on waste management in informal settlement communities,” said Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis.

Cape Town’s winning proposal centres on community-driven approaches to tackling persistent waste challenges in high-density areas where traditional municipal waste systems often struggle to operate effectively. The city’s plan builds on pilot programmes that aim to redesign how waste is collected, sorted and managed in partnership with residents.

At the heart of the initiative is the idea that solutions should be co-created with communities rather than imposed from the top down. By involving residents in the design and implementation of waste strategies, the City hopes to develop systems that are more practical, sustainable and responsive to local realities.

The funding will support efforts such as improving waste separation at source, strengthening localised collection systems, and introducing models that better integrate municipal services with community participation.

In many informal settlements, limited space, access challenges and rapid population growth complicate conventional refuse collection. The City’s approach, therefore, looks at flexible, neighbourhood-based systems that can adapt to these conditions.

Scaling city solutions

For the construction and infrastructure sector, the recognition highlights the growing importance of innovative urban service-delivery models, particularly in rapidly expanding cities. Informal settlements remain one of the most pressing infrastructure challenges across South Africa and many parts of the developing world.

Effective waste management is not only a sanitation issue but also a key factor in environmental protection, public health and long-term urban resilience.

The Bloomberg competition is known for supporting ideas that can be tested, refined and eventually replicated in other cities. Alongside the financial prize, winning cities typically gain access to technical support, innovation experts and global networks that help turn pilot projects into scalable solutions.

For Cape Town, the award signals international confidence in the City’s efforts to address service-delivery gaps through collaboration and experimentation. If successful, the project could help establish a model for improving waste systems in dense, underserved urban areas – a challenge that municipalities across South Africa continue to grapple with.

As cities increasingly look for ways to manage infrastructure pressures while maintaining sustainability goals, initiatives like this demonstrate how targeted funding, community engagement and practical innovation can converge to drive meaningful change on the ground.