Ghana takes giant steps towards managing plastic waste

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will, on October 1, launch the Ghana National Plastic Action Partnership (GNPAP) and the Waste Recovery Platform to ensure comprehensive management of plastic waste for sustainable development.

The unveiling of the GNPAP will be done in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to promote sustainable waste recovery in the country through connecting stakeholders across the plastic waste management value chain.

Ghana and Indonesia are the two countries in the world selected by the World Economic Forum to pilot plastic waste management under the Global Plastic Action Partnership, which will serve as a model for the rest of the world.

Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the Information Minister, announced this at the mid-week media briefing in Accra.

The Global Plastic Action Partnership is a new initiative created by a coalition of influential public and private leaders to fast-track plastic pollution action around the world to deal with the plastic waste menace.

President Akufo-Addo and Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, the Minister of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, will formally announce the initiative on October 1 in Accra.

The event will coincide with the launch of the National Plastic Management Policy, which will serve as a blueprint for managing plastic waste to drive sustainable development, green job creation and environmental protection.

Mr Oppong Nkrumah said Ghana was one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and a leading political and economic force in Africa, therefore piloting the initiative in the country would catalyse a new era of plastic action across the Continent.

The initiative, he said, would support the existing work being done by Government, entrepreneurs and other civil society actors at the local level to accelerate the reduction of plastic waste pollution.

Mr Oliver Boachie, a Special Advisor to the Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, said under UNIDO's global environmental project, 10 million dollars had been allocated towards plastic waste management for the next five years.

Additionally, the United Kingdom Government has created Environmental Clean Ocean Alliance and set aside 10 million dollars to provide funding for Commonwealth nations to manage plastic waste meaningfully.

The Global Plastic Action Partnership envisions a world free of plastic waste and pollution.

It represents one of the most powerful and concerted efforts,

Internationally, to address the plastic waste menace, bringing together public, private, and civil society leaders to translate commitments into concrete action.

For the Ghana National Plastic Management Policy, it aims to use the comprehensive management of plastics across their life-cycle and value-chain as a vehicle for sustainable development, enabling a shift towards a plastics circular economy.

It lays a foundation to enable the creation of entirely new industry for redesigning, recovering and recycling plastics, preventing pollution of the environment and communities, and creating many new jobs in the green economy.

The policy will focus on mobilising finances and innovations to enable new business models to sustainably manage plastics and support communities and companies to coordinate and plan for a circular plastic economy.

The UNDP ‘Waste’ Recovery Platform, on the other hand, represents one of the newest and most innovative initiatives in its long history of notable work in Ghana.

This initiative will create a real-time and digital one-stop-shop solutions platform to connect stakeholders across the waste management chain with access to open data and innovative technology solutions to promote waste recovery.

It will convene stakeholders for dialogue and exchange through a highly inclusive approach.

The Platform will bring together more than 250 stakeholders in the waste management value chain, from traditional and non-traditional backgrounds, to inform its design.

Through its ‘Waste’ Recovery Innovation Challenge, it will have a special focus on highlighting and supporting entrepreneurship and innovation in Ghana’s waste management sector.