Title

Please provide a name for your action learning plan.

Promoting practices from the ground and developing monitoring capacity to implement waste management policies

Challenge statement

Challenge statement: What is your challenge? (Please answer in specific terms: "Our challenge is that...”.)

Our challenge is that society and public institutions need to improve collaboration to increase resilience to climate change, particularly as it applies to solid waste management

Background: What is the history of your challenge? What is causing or driving it? Who is involved? How does the current situation look like? What undesired effects does it produce?

In a context of weak public institutions and mistrust, pollution from waste has affected natural ecoysistems. In particular, the pollution of the Motagua river has grown to become a bi-national problem. This is a complex problem that includes multiple interrelated drivers such as cultural practices, ineffective regulation, misaligned economic incentives, difficulties to coordinate efforts, lack of institutional capacity, contextual pressures (such as climate change), among others.  In Guatemala, about 43% of people burn waste, 95% of rivers are polluted, over 2,800 tons of waste are disposed daily only in the Metropolitan area, and only 17% of people rely on municipal services for waste collection. To improve waste management, the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Health issued an executive bill in August 021 to introduce waste management practices over a 24-month period. The bill requires that all waste generators (particularly households) sort inorganic, organic, and recyclable waste, and makes local governments accountable for this.  Working in this challenge, we've mapped the waste management system. this is an emergent system that dates back more than 40 years. Today, the waste management system is provided by a mixed service: private, public, and informal service providers. Our observations allowed us to acknowledge that waste is being sorted by collectors, most of them in the informal realm. However, their work has eased the pressure from the amount of waste dumped in the main landfill of the country "Relleno Zona 3", in Guatemala City, effectively becoming a "grassroots solution" in the system.  There is a need to improve the waste sorting from the source and within the waste collection operation, for which we have conducted some innovation events (such as co-creation exercises like a "Thinkaton" and a "Transition Plan"). In that regard, there are opportunities to enhance waste collector trucks through prototypes; and to improve health and safety of collectors. Relevant actors involve include academia, citizens, collectors, truck owners and associations as well as national and local institutions.  

Quantitative evidence: What (official) data sources do you have on this challenge that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge? You can add text, a link, or a picture.

According to the most recent population census of the National Institute of Statistics (INE), the municipalities of fluvial and marine-coastal areas present trends in the disposal of garbage including burning and throwing garbage in rivers, streams, seas or anywhere, reflecting the lack of adequate municipalities of private services. Furthermore, there is little scientific knowledge about the waste situation in specific areas and the effective countermeasures needed to adequately address the problem.  Most organic waste at departamental level are organic, followed by plastic. However, there are inadequate ways at municipal level for understanding the management of such types of waste, according to the National Information System for Climate Change (SNICC by its acronym in Spanish).  Also, data from the Ministry of the Environment Indicates that each Guatemalan produces 1.14 pounds of waste per day, on average, which translates into more than 10,000 metric tons (Prensa Libre, March 9th, 2022), and about 43% of people burn their waste (National Census, 2018).  In Guatemala City, this means: 2,800 tons per day (measured) are dumped in the open-pit landfill in zone 3. The waste comes from the city and other 14 municipalities, without contributing either in species or financially to Municipality of Guatemala management (Municipality of Guatemala, September 2021).  Due to watershed system, the municipal landfill is part of one of the micro basins contributing to basin of Las Vacas river, which is connected to the main northern watershed, Motagua River. Due to rain season waste dumped not only from the landfill but also from the many illegal dumpster, today 95% of Guatemalan rivers are polluted.  2,348 garbage dumps were registered in the country. 2,078 are clandestine and 270 recognized by the municipality (Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, 2017). 

Qualitative evidence: What weak signals have you recently spotted that characterizes its urgency? Please provide qualitative information that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge. You can add text, a link, or a picture.

Local and national authorities have reported the need of better statistics for estimating waste management related aspect, for understanding the problem at municipal levels, planning and monitoring implementation of national policies and estimating greenhouse emission in line with the Paris Agreements.  Additionally, the composition of waste is one of the main factors influencing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as different types of waste contain different amounts of degradable organic carbon (DOC) and fossil carbon. Currently, there is no information that allows characterizing unmanaged waste disposal sites, including historical values of per capita generation of solid waste and half-life values for waste with organic fractions to determine the generation of CH4 (methane), which also makes it difficult to calculate greenhouse gases (GHG) at the municipal level in the country.  There are 333 municipalities (some very small and other mid to large size) that are accountable for waste management and meet the deadlines stablished by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, out of which we're currently working with eight local governments are also expressing concerns at the lack of support from central government to implement the new waste management bill.  There are serious risks that the bill be challenged by certain sectors, beginning with municipalities as it has happened before with water management regulation, requiring municipal investment that many municipalities became together to legally block the regulation. On the other hand, more people are becoming aware and are taking actions for a better waste classification to recycling practices. 

Value proposition: What added value or unique value proposition is your Accelerator Lab bringing to solving this challenge? Why is it your Lab that needs to work on this challenge and not other actors within UNDP, other stakeholders in the country respectively? Why is it worth investing resources to this challenge?

From the lab's learnings in 2021, we propose to focus on two interconnected areas: (1) learning together what works to promote waste management practices and (2) Learning how to increase institutional analytical capacities to monitor environmental policies.  In the first area, we are collaborating with the Ministry of Environment, local governments, local and unusual actors we intend to scout grassroots' solutions, analyze and test together how to tackle the waste management challenges, address national regulation and promote changes in practices. In the second area, we are collaborating with the Ministry of Environment, academia and open mapping / citizen science partners we intend to gain better understanding at the local communities and test together the potential of high-resolution geo-located data to inform decision on solid waste policies.  We believe that lab is uniquely positioned to address this challenge by: (1) building solution with a bottom-up approach, based on previous learnings from co-designing participatory plans with local communities, considering the local conditions and acknowledging their opinions, challenges, opportunities, and understanding their vision; (2) testing prototypes, through local institutions and communities eager to collaborate with us, in particular to waste sorting from the source and involving waste collectors and citizens, and allowing to generate learnings in quick and less expensive ways addressing a national problem from ground; (3) scaling proven solutions, to UNDP programs / projects and government institutions lacking current mechanisms and resources, while legitimizing local regulations with citizens. 

Short “tweet” summary: We would like to tweet what you are working on, can you summarize your challenge in a maximum of 280 characters?

We are learning together, along with citizens and local governments, as we launch full-scale prototypes to promote waste sorting and increase the capacity to monitor environmental policies using geo-referenced data. 

Challenge classification

Partners

Learning questions

Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?

How could we ensure the most suitable waste separation solutions to be taken into local regulations?

Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?

We will use a mixture of co-creation, participatory design, and prototyping to develop minimum viable products that we can pilot, or do proof of concepts, to learn together with counterparts what works to promote waste separation practices. From the learning cycle 04, the Transition Plan is naturally unfolding into a new learning cycle 05 to run actions identified previously with local stakeholders.  We are scouting grassroots solutions and validate which are the most suitable to each municipality (with very different socioeconomic conditions) thru trying prototypes with citizens.     

Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?

To learn what works to promote waste separation practices, we will use citizen-generated data from participatory observation, self-ethnography, and direct interviews. This means that citizens and institutional counterparts will fill out the observation instruments for the prototypes that will be developed together.  There’s no waste characterization in Guatemala City, and we’ll be conducting the trials in 4 main residential areas. Is possible that during the process we might obtain qualitative data from the journals that may vary from each residential area.  To conduct the trials, we’re already calculating what is the waste generation average per household, to provide the right prototypes and capacities. We expect, afterwards trying out the prototypes, we get to validate pre-calculations, finding whether we were correct or not and what is the real scenario that this pilot areas face.  We hope to estimate the amount of organic and inorganic waste with certain grassroots solutions, but it will be more effective to have expert(s) running waste measurements within our tests. This is yet to be determined if possible. 

Learning questions

Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?

How to increase institutional analytical capacities to monitor environmental policies

Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?

The proposed methods aim to understand the potential of utilizing diverse data sources, mainly satellite imagery and open mapping/citizen science, in order generate new evidence with high geographical and temporal resolution currently lacked by local authorities and relevant actors. We intend to design data collection and access mechanisms backed up by local authorities in order to prepare for descriptive and predictive analysis in our next cycles for inferring unmanaged landfills characteristics such as location –with emphasis on the ones affecting the river streams–, characterization and treatment methods used, mainly uncontrolled burning. Also, the results are expected to complement the current National Information System for Climate Change (SNICC) and national official statistics.

Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?

There aren't existing statistics with enough periodicity and geographical resolution to inform solid waste environmental policies. More specifically it is unknown by local authorities and domain experts solid waste dumping site’s characteristics such as location –specially affecting main river streams–, and characterization and treatment methods used, mainly uncontrolled burning.  By understanding better how using and combining the new data sources propose we intend to generate new evidence for designing new data collection and analysis methods.

Closing

Early leads to grow: Think about the possible grow phase for this challenge - who might benefit from your work on this challenge or who might be the champions in your country that you should inform or collaborate with early on to help you grow this challenge?

The requests to implement actions recommended in the transition plan are signs that local governments are interested in adopting the learnings on how to promote waste management practices.  Local governments are in need of developing regulation, and are interested in solutions which have been validated from the ground.  There is tension between national authorities and local governments regarding how the bill needs to be implemented, thus the adoption of learnings on how to separate waste can help empower local governments to appropriate the bill in their terms.  There is a perceived demand from local governments outside the scope of the Lab's work to replicate the exercise of involving citizens and institutionalize learnings on waste management. Methods designed for monitoring environmental policies that have been validated and enhanced would directly benefit the Ministry of Environment, as well as UNDP's Environmental Programatic Area. Internal teams have already shown interest and support to the Lab's work on developing analytical capacity to monitor environmental policies. 

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