Sustainable Consumption and Production

First National/City Workshops for Developing National/City Waste Management Strategies in Myanmar

Myanmar has been facing considerable challenges with the management of solid waste due to increasing income and consumption levels, population growth in urban areas, and lack of effective waste treatment and disposal options.  Following recent political reforms, the country has been making efforts to prioritise waste management by tackling data gaps and advancing the institutional coordination necessary for updating and enforcing relevant laws and regulations.

In this context, the United Nations Environmental Programme’s International Environmental Technology Centre (UNEP-IETC) has been actively supporting governments in the region to strengthen capacity on waste management including through the design of conducive policy frameworks and strategies. As a key partner in this initiative, the IGES – Centre Collaborating with UNEP on Environmental Technologies (CCET) organised the first series of participatory workshops in Myanmar aimed at assisting national and city level stakeholders in Myanmar to develop waste management strategies based on a holistic approach, addressing solid, liquid and gaseous waste in an integrated manner. 

From 13-17 June, two consecutive national and city level workshops were delivered in the capital city of Myanmar, Nay Pyi Taw and Mandalay municipality, respectively. The main objectives of the workshops were as follows:

• To assess the extent and effectiveness of Myanmar’s present waste management system, identifying constraints and areas for improvement at the national and city levels with a view to achieve an enhanced level of performance;
• To guide the formulation of draft national/ city level waste management strategies and action plans that addresses waste issues in a holistic and integrated manner, including by establishing a supportive institutional framework, proposing appropriate policy interventions, and addressing the awareness and training needs of the various stakeholders involved; 
• To establish the necessary monitoring and feedback mechanisms for periodically reviewing the strategy and action plan and submitting the final version for approval by the responsible authorities.

A number of central and sub-national authorities, including the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MONREC), Ministry of Health, Ministry of Industry, as well as representatives from Mandalay, Yangon, and Nay Pyi Taw City Development Committees, the private sector, academia and civil society were in attendance at the national workshop (13-15 June), where participants received practical guidance on all steps of the strategic planning process for waste management. Similarly, the Mandalay City Development Committee (MCDC), together with a cross-section of public, private and civil society stakeholders took part in the city level workshop (16-17 June), which aimed at supporting MCDC to identify specific targets, indicators and actions to be taken up for consideration in drafting the municipality’s future waste management strategy.

In addition to being the first occasion where national and local officials were provided an opportunity to meet and discuss options for improving the country’s waste management system, the workshops proved to be a success in several notable respects. Firstly, consensus was achieved among national and municipal stakeholders, all of whom expressed their strong political commitment and support for continued development of the waste management strategies. Secondly, the workshops identified areas for integration with national and regional policy processes: MONREC requested the future strategy to be aligned with National Environmental Policy currently being drafted as part of the agency’s 5-year development plan, whilst MCDC indicated that the finaliszed city-level strategy would eventually be included in the Mandalay Region Development Plan. Lastly, it was agreed that in order to ensure the strategies best reflected the needs and concerns of the wider public, a series of regional consultation meetings would be organiszed in Yangon and Mandalay in the coming months, whereupon updated drafts of the strategies would be published online to encourage wider knowledge sharing and review. This will be followed up by a second series of workshops aimed at finaliszing the strategies which are scheduled for later this year.

National Workshop

City-level Workshop