Challenge statement
Challenge type: If you are working on multiple challenges, please indicate if this is your "big bet" or "exploratory" challenge.
Please note: we ask you to only submit a maximum of 3 challenges - 1x Big Bet, 2x Exploratory. Each challenge must be submitted individually.
BIG BET
Challenge statement: What is your challenge? (Please answer in specific terms: "Our challenge is that...”.)
Our challenge is to establish an inclusive and sustainable waste management by utilizing behavioral insights and digital technology.
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?
St. Martin's Island is a small island (area only 3.65 km2) in the north-eastern part of the Bay of Bengal, about 9 km south of the tip of the Cox's Bazar-Teknaf peninsula and forming the southernmost part of Bangladesh. Most of the island's approximately 9,400 inhabitants live primarily from fishing. However, the island is currently under serious environmental threat. The reef is damaged, mainly from; fishing, anchoring of boats, unplanned sewerage system, and waste discarded by tourists. During the tourist season a huge number of tourists visit the island each day (around 8000 per day and approx. 700,000 per year) through 10 different boats from Teknaf, Cox’s Bazar and Chattogram, which is nearly 8 times higher than its carrying capacity.
Currently there is no formal mechanism, and most wastes are buried under ground or burnt manually. Still a major part of the waste is going to the marine ecosystem and presence of Micro plastic has been discovered in the sea water.
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.
• It estimates that a person living in a city produces 500g of waste per day on average, whereas ones living on the island disposes of 250g of waste a day.
https://bdnews24.com/environment/plastic-pollution-endangering-marine-wildlife-in-saint-martins-island
• As a part of annual International Coastal Cleanup and Coca-Cola’s global initiative to achieve a ‘World without Waste’ by 2030, the Coca-Cola System in Bangladesh with other participants managed to remove more than 1800 kgs of marine debris from the shores of St Martin’s. Most of the marine debris consisted of food wrappers, plastic beverage bottles, plastic bottle caps, plastic bags, plastic utensils, plastic lids etc.
https://bangladeshpost.net/posts/initiatives-to-keep-biodiversity-of-st-martin-clean-101759
• In February 2022, a group of young tourists visiting Saint Martin's Island collected around 500 kg of waste from various parts of the island over two days, in a bid to raise awareness regarding the environment among fellow tourists
https://www.thedailystar.net/environment/young-tourists-collect-500-kg-trash-from-st-martins-island-1873663
• On an average, over 4,000 tourists stay overnight in the 8-square kilometer island daily along with its 10,000 permanent residents. To accommodate the increasing number of tourists, nearly 150 multi-storeyed resorts were built in this Environmentally Critical Area (ECA) after 2000 in violation of the restrictions. Due to such non-stop grabbing and reckless use of lands, the highly fragile and sensitive island ecosystem faces risks of extinction. While 141,127 and 65 coral species existed in 1980, 1990 and 1997 respectively in the island there were only 41 in 2016. The number of coral species would come down to 24 by 2030 and they would completely disappear by 2045. The ecosystem and the biodiversity of the vulnerable island and its marine environment faced a serious threat due to the construction of unplanned structures and the waste generated by the locks and the tourists.
https://www.newagebd.net/article/130590/st-martins-island-in-peril
• https://www.tbsnews.net/features/panorama/why-govt-plans-save-st-martins-falling-wayside-352819
• https://www.thedailystar.net/st-martin-s-in-peril-4386
• https://bdnews24.com/media-en/image/bf9lubgayl
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.
Prior to our pilot experimentation on Saint Martin’s Waste Management System, it has been observed that most of the project to establish a sustainable waste management system on the island failed due to a number of incompetencies, absence of local people engagement and poor collaboration of the beach waste management authorities. People's ignorance in keeping the island free from plastic waste has led to serious environmental threats endangering the vast marine wildlife and biodiversity. If a proper system of waste management is not developed at the earliest time possible, then the whole island will be destroyed and covered with plastic wastes causing the extinction of the coral enriched island of Bangladesh in near future. Also, recent studies have clearly spotted the erosion of land area and reduction of corals in Saint Martin’s Island. Without taking a multidimensional approach to work on different components engaging all level of stakeholders including government counterparts, local leaders, local communities, private enterprise, NGOs, CSOs, as well as other citizen/tourist visiting the island, it is quite not possible to identify effective solutions that can best comply to the protection of the island to be wiped out from the map of Bangladesh.
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?
Accelerator Lab is experimenting with the innovation for inclusive waste management systems considering the methodology workable in island management. Accelerator Lab has the potential to work with multi stakeholders including different actors within UN systems as well as external components ranging from Govt. counterparts to field level representatives.. Accelerator Lab always explores, experiments innovation and works on solutions mapping. So it's much more viable to work other than the actors within UNDP. This Accelerator Lab can connect different actors from the systems altogether under the same umbrella easily. This is one of the worth investing as mitigation of this challenge would contribute to the inclusive development of the beach contributing to tourism development, blue economy, biodiversity conservation, livelihood development and overall growth.
Short “tweet” summary: We would like to tweet what you are working on, can you summarize your challenge in a maximum of 280 characters?
Sustainable Waste Management in Saint Martin’s Island for conservation of Island, coral reefs and it’s biodiversity.
Partners
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the Parter:
Union Parishad of Saint Martin’s
What sector does our partner belong to?
Government (&related)
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
Union Parishad of Saint Martin’s are working as main actor for implementation of the initiative.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
No
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the Parter:
Sub-district Administration
What sector does our partner belong to?
Government (&related)
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
Sub-district Administration supporting in coordination among all the stakeholders and establishing necessary connections.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
No
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
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?
What are the main challenges of waste management in St. Martin’s Island including comprehensive mapping of waste sources?
How to establish a sustainable waste management system in Saint Martin’s Island using digital technology?
How to identify and connect relevant stakeholders to establish and maintain a sustainable system of waste management in Saint Martin’s?
What types of behavioral change interventions would contribute to ensure an inclusive and self oriented/community led waste management system at the island?
How the experiences from Saint Martin’s Island waste management system can be treated by the policy makers for applying in other island’s waste management systems?
To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?
Sense, Explore, Test
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?
These tools will allow understanding both the qualitative and quantitative context, challenges, partners demand, and effective solutions.
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?
Remote Sensing Data
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?
Local Government, Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism, Ministry of Environment forest and climate change and Local Community people of the island.
END OF ACTION LEARNING PLAN: Thank you! The form saves automatically and your submission has been recorded. You may now exit this window.
11Sustainable cities and communities
13Climate action
14Life below water
15Life on land
17Partnerships for the goals
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