A Regional Response to the Global Challenge of Single-Use Plastic Pollution: Regulatory Frameworks in IGAD Countries

Single-use plastic (SUP) pollution has emerged as a major sustainability and environmental-governance challenge in developing and institutionally fragile regions characterized by weak waste-management systems, uneven enforcement capacity, and fragmented regional coordination. This paper examines the regulation of SUPs in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) member states as a case of regional environmental governance in contexts of institutional diversity and limited regulatory capacity. Using a structured doctrinal and comparative legal-analysis methodology, the study evaluates formally enacted national and selected subnational legal and policy instruments through the framework of international environmental law principles, particularly prevention, precaution, polluter-pays, cooperation, and life-cycle governance. The findings reveal substantial divergence in plastics governance across the region. Some countries, including Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia, rely primarily on direct bans and preventive restrictions, while others regulate plastics indirectly through broader environmental and waste-management frameworks. Kenya demonstrates the region’s most integrated governance model through preventive regulation, extended producer responsibility (EPR), recycling obligations, and circular-economy measures, whereas responsibility-based governance remains weak across much of the region. The study further shows that fragmented legal systems, weak enforcement capacity, limited recycling infrastructure, and insufficient regional coordination continue to undermine effective plastics governance in IGAD. From a sustainability-law perspective, the paper demonstrates how fragmented institutional environments and uneven governance capacities shape plastics governance in underexamined, fragile regional contexts. It concludes that progressive regional harmonization integrating prevention, producer responsibility, recycling systems, lifecycle governance, and transboundary cooperation offers the most viable pathway toward sustainable plastics governance in the IGAD region while contributing to discussions concerning SDGs 12, 13, 14, 16, and 17. The findings further suggest that IGAD institutions and member-state governments should strengthen extended producer responsibility frameworks, invest in recycling and waste-management infrastructure, enhance enforcement capacity, and promote coordinated regional policies to support a transition toward a circular economy and reduce transboundary plastic pollution.