Institutional Capacity in Local Waste Management Initiatives: A Comparative Study of Ghent (Belgium) and Surabaya (Indonesia)

Urban solid waste governance research has often examined the city-level waste system and paid less attention to what local initiatives do and how institutional capacity is structured to sustain them across different governance contexts. This thesis asks how and which local institutional capacities matter for waste governance by analysing how institutional capacity is configured across six successful local waste governance initiatives in Ghent, Belgium, and Surabaya, Indonesia, and identifying which capacity patterns are shared across both governance contexts and which are context dependent. This thesis analyses six successful local waste governance initiatives: three in Ghent, Belgium, such as PAYT/Diftar, Recycling Parks 2.0, and FoodSavers, and three in Surabaya, Indonesia, such as Waste Banks, TPS3R, and Garda Pangan. Using the Most Different System Design, this study applies a six-dimensional analytical framework adapted from the USAID SCIL, based on structured documentary analysis: policy and legal framework; organisational coordination and service delivery; financial and resource management; human resources and capacity building; communication and public awareness; and monitoring and evaluation. The study finds that all three Ghent initiatives present all six institutional capacity dimensions, reflecting a formal governance environment in which full-dimensional capacity is produced through the binding regulatory requirements that apply to any initiative operating within the Flemish waste governance system. The findings show that while formal institutional infrastructure is important for certain capacity dimensions, informal institutions such as social and relational networks can also sustain other dimensions of capacity across different governance contexts. This study contributes to institutional capacity research by operationalising capacity as a configurational, multi-dimensional analytical framework at the initiative level. Limitations stem from reliance on documentary evidence, which future research could address by incorporating interview-based methods and additional city cases.