NAIROBI, 11 December 2019 – This December the city of Kisumu in Kenya has been welcomed by UN-Habitat as the 100th member city into the Waste Wise City Campaign (WWCC).
Since the campaign was launched on World Habitat Day in October 2018, UN-Habitat has been engaging cities from across the world to join the WWCC. Now, the campaign has expanded to more than 100 cities from over 25 countries. The member cities are showing a great attitude to push municipal solid waste management to the top of their agenda, contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Developing Goals and New Urban Agenda.
Background to #WasteWiseCities:
UN-Habitat launched the Waste Wise Cities Campaign on World Habitat Day in 2018. The campaign aims to enhance waste management and resource efficiency in the world’s cities.
The campaign draws on the long-standing expertise of UN-Habitat in delivering basic services, especially to the urban poor. In its global report on “Solid Waste Management in the World’s Cities”, published in 2010, UN-Habitat established the framework of integrated sustainable waste management. According to this framework, waste management systems have to take care of both the physical and the governance aspects of waste.
The physical aspects include waste collection, the 5Rs of recycling (Rethink, Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) as well as waste disposal. The governance aspects encompass stakeholder inclusivity, financial sustainability, and the institutional framework.
To give cities and local governments a guideline to establish integrated sustainable waste management systems, Waste Wise Cities Campaign promotes 12 principles.
By joining the campaign cities and local governments commit to these principles and promote sustainable waste management. UN-Habitat supports members of Waste Wise Cities Campaign in the following four key action areas: Data & Monitoring, Knowledge & Best Practices Sharing, Advocacy & Education, and Project Finance & Bankability Support.
Waste Wise Cities Challenge:
Under the umbrella of WWCC, UN-Habitat launched the Waste Wise Cities Challenge. This challenge aims at cleaning-up cities and establishing the foundation of sustainable waste management system by 2022. Your city can be either CHANGEMAKER CITY, taking up the challenge or SUPPORTE CITY, assisting a partnered changemaker city. Participating in this challenge connects your city with UN-Habitat, its partners and global network of waste management experts.
Check out more info on WWCC and Challenge https://unhabitat.org/waste-wise-cities-campaign and engage your city to join them towards sustainable urban development.
#WasteWiseCities: Top 20 innovative solutions that transform waste to wealth:
Through the WWCC, UN-Habitat aims at transforming the challenges into opportunities to move towards circular economy business models, create job opportunities, enhance income for the urban poor and establish sustainable mechanisms to manage (waste) resources. The theme for the 2019 World Habitat Day was Frontier Technologies as an innovative tool to transform waste to wealth. In the build up to this UN-Habitat received over 200 applications (from member cities and non) to its call on innovative solutions to use waste the generate wealth, and narrowed these down to a Top 20 list.
