1. Background
Plastic has many valuable uses in our daily life as they are lightweight, durable, and inexpensive. However, our current levels of plastic production, usage, and disposal pose serious threats to environment, economy and health. Plastic pollution is one of the most significant risks posed to the planet, affecting all countries and regions on the planet. In particular, developing countries face serious problems with plastic waste leaking into environment, including marine ecosystems.
Tackling the plastic pollution crisis requires a comprehensive approach that addresses the full lifecycle of plastic. This will mean eliminating unnecessary single-use and short-lived plastics, rolling out refill and reuse models and producing less problematic plastic. It also means addressing harmful chemicals and designing for circularity. And for the plastics that are produced, it means investing in solid waste management and recycling to reuse resources more efficiently, while keeping plastic out of the environment. Plastic pollution is not only an issue caused by lack of waste management capacity alone, but it is inevitable to create an enabling environment that accelerates a systemic transformation towards a circular economy of plastics to reduce and end plastic pollution.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), supported by the Government of Japan (GoJ), has in recent years put in place extensive efforts in capacity building for monitoring and assessment of the plastic pollution and development of tools and protocols for it, knowledge sharing, and capacity building for plastic pollution management in the Asia region. In particular, UNEP’s CounterMEASURE projects initiated in 2019 have generated and shared knowledge to strengthen policies to reduce plastic pollution in major rivers in Asia such as the Ganges and the Mekong. With a successful background in capacity building in Mekong River Basin, GoJ and UNEP have now expanded their coverage to another important region, or the Pacific Countries under the project titled “Strengthening Plastic Pollution Management in Asia and the Pacific (Mekong-Pacific Project)”.
The Mekong-Pacific Project aims to strengthen capabilities for assessment and monitoring and plastic pollution management in the Asia and Pacific regions by enhancing the systematic approach to plastic pollution management and cross-region learning across the countries. The Mekong-Pacific Project, in collaboration with Global Environment Centre Foundation (GEC), is organizing a capacity building study programme focused on sharing and showcasing the best practice policies, technologies, business cases, research, and awareness raising activities on plastic management in Japan.
2. Objective
This programme is designed as a catalyst for transformation to a circular economy on plastics, aiming to provide a capacity building opportunity by exchanging knowledge, experiences, and best practices policies, technologies, business cases, and research in plastic pollution management from upstream to downstream aspects in the plastic value chain, ensuring the strengthening of capacities through peer-to -peer learning among the participating countries and awareness-raising activities. This programme aims to strengthen knowledge and capacity to develop and implement regulatory frameworks towards a circular plastics economy and identify effective actions of governments, industry and civil society to address and reduce plastic pollution at the national and local levels. The capacity building will engage government representatives and experts of the private sector, industry associations, academia, and other related stakeholders in Japan.
3. Modality
Face-to-face meetings, seminars, study visits and fieldworks for 5 days in Osaka and Kyoto in Japan. Best policies, business solutions, technologies and cases in Japan will be presented to the participants, meantime, existing experience from the participating countries and learnings from the participants will be shared as well through discussions in each session to ensure the programme mutual learning opportunities for all. Interpretation of Japanese to English and English to Japanese will take place.
4. Target Countries and Participants
Total 30 people (maximum) from Asia and the Pacific countries as follows: 8 Asian countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Philippines, Timor Leste, Thailand and Vietnam) and 13 Pacific countries (Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu)
5. Date and Venue
- Date: 23-27 September 2024
- Venue: Global Environment Centre Foundation (GEC), Osaka, Japan
