Uganda will observe its second National General Cleaning Day, an initiative aimed at improving sanitation, public health, waste management, and general cleanliness. Communities are expected to participate in cleaning homes, roads, streets, markets, drainage channels and other public spaces.
Similar initiatives exist in countries such as Rwanda, Japan, and France. While the initiative is well-intentioned, its success will depend not only on mobilising citizens to clean but also on whether government establishes the systems necessary to sustain cleanliness beyond a single day.
Under the current arrangement, movement is restricted from 7am to 10am, while businesses and places of worship are expected to close during the exercise. Although these measures may encourage participation, they raise concerns about economic costs, enforcement, and sustainability.
The previous cleaning exercise appeared to generate mixed levels of public enthusiasm, with reports of arrests. While enforcement can achieve short-term participation, it may not necessarily create a genuine culture of willingness and individual responsibility.
For low-income households, particularly those whose livelihoods depend on daily earnings, losing productive hours can impose a disproportionate economic burden, highlighting the need to balance public sanitation objectives with citizens’ economic realities.
Without adequate garbage collection equipment, storage facilities, transportation, recycling systems, and properly managed disposal sites, cleaning exercises may simply shift waste from hidden areas to drainage channels, creating further sanitation problems.
The Kiteezi landfill tragedy, which claimed more lives, demonstrates the consequences of inadequate waste-management infrastructure. Kampala and other urban authorities continue to face significant challenges in establishing sustainable waste collection, disposal, recycling, and management systems.
The concept of individual responsibility carried out collectively offers an important way of thinking about Uganda’s cleaning initiative.
In societies with strong civic cultures, individuals often take responsibility for their immediate surroundings without requiring constant government enforcement. Government provides the systems, infrastructure, standards, and public education, while citizens contribute through daily responsible behaviour.
Japanese spectators cleaning stadiums after matches in the World Cup games in the USA demonstrate how individual responsibility can become a collective social norm. Uganda can cultivate a similar culture.
Government should take greater responsibility for providing waste bins, collection equipment, transportation, disposal facilities, recycling systems, and public education.
Once these systems are functioning effectively, citizens can assume greater responsibility for maintaining clean surroundings from a government-enforced activity into a shared civic responsibility.
Rwanda provides another useful regional example. The exercise demonstrates that community cleaning can become an opportunity not only to improve sanitation but also to discuss wider community challenges, including security, infrastructure, and social welfare.
Rwanda’s household-level demographic data and legal penalties provide a model for improving participation, accountability, and effective implementation.
However, Uganda could complement enforcement with incentives and recognition to encourage participation, gradually transforming the exercise from a mandatory activity into a widely accepted social norm and, ultimately, a lasting culture.
National cleaning days should not become isolated events but catalysts for a lasting culture of responsible waste management.
Government should promote household-level waste separation, clearly labelled collection points, recycling industries, waste-to-energy technologies, and stronger regulation of disposal by households, businesses, and institutions.
Most importantly, sustained public education and behavioural-change campaigns should begin at household and school levels to encourage responsible waste practices.
The paradox is that individual actions can produce collective outcomes only when supported by effective institutions and shared social norms.
Government must provide the infrastructure while citizens must assume responsibility for their individual contribution to the public good. A clean environment is a shared public good and a shared civic responsibility.