Waste management in the village of Metbassta

Innovation methods

Data sources

SDG(s)

Sustainable Development Goal(s)

3Good health and well-being

11Sustainable cities and communities

15Life on land

Disclaimer:

Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.

Title

Please provide a name for your action learning plan.

Waste management in the village of Metbassta

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.

EXPLORATORY

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

Our challenge is to find a solution to the waste problem in the village of Metbassta by proposing an intelligent redistribution of bins in the village as well as experiments with residents aiming at behaviors that respect nature and health.

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 parallel with its water initiative in the town of Kairouan, the Accelerator Lab noticed a massive concentration, even an invasion of waste at the entrance to the town, a few kilometers in the village of Metbassta. We discovered that this village has no waste management system, does not even have skips and is not included in any municipal waste plan. The 3,000 inhabitants also suffer from a lack of sanitation and evacuation of waste and polluted water, exposing residents to serious risks of disease and infection.

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.

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.

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?

In accordance with the memorandum of understanding between the municipality and the UNDP environment cluster, the Accelerator lab succeeded in: - Include the village of Metabassta in the municipal waste collection circuit - Provide the village with more than 30 skips - Propose with residents a dumpster location map for an optimized internal collection circuit - Launch a behavioral survey with a sociologist consultant in order to propose participatory experiments

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

The village of Metbassta has suffered from the total absence of a waste collection system for the past 10 years. Find out how UNDP and its Accelerator Lab are changing lives by implementing a new waste system in partnership with local residents and the municipality of Kairouan.

Challenge classification

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 partner:

Citizens of Metbassta Municipality of Kairouan Environment Cluster-UNDP

What sector does our partner belong to?

Civil Society

Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.

The Environment Cluster has been working for months with the municipality of Kairouan to draw up a new development plan for the entire commune. The accelrator Lab came to the rescue with a special focus on one of the most polluted parts of the municipality, the village of Metbasta. The Lab undertook a behavioral study of the village to understand the direct and indirect causes of waste accumulation. In-depth work was carried out with local residents, whose recommendations were passed on to the municipality. Together, we are preparing to install 700-liter skips throughout the village, the location of which was decided in a collective intelligence workshop. These skips will be integrated into a municipal waste collection scheme.

Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?

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 causes of waste accumulation in the village? - why is there no sustainable waste collection system? - How can we adopt a waste collection system that meets the expectations of local residents and the resources available to the municipality?

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?

To understand the causes of waste accumulation, we used ethnography and system thinking. Also, Behavioral insights are vital to find the conducts for change by engaging people which began with divers workshops with local residents using collective intelligence (to make a consensus, for exemple, on the location of the 700 Liter skips)

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?

in all the above Data sources, there are huge gaps in Tunisia because it's not centralized. Finding solid information requires cross-checking several sources. What's more, certain areas such as behavioral i sights are still poorly understood and used.

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 5,000 inhabitants of the village will be direct beneficiaries of this project, as will the whole of Kairouan. This could be an example to follow for all communes, especially in rural areas, which suffer from the lack of a sustainable waste collection system.

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