Tanzania • 25. April 2022
In April the ReduCE-Waste pilot project by the PREVENT Waste Alliance met with Tanzanian stakeholders in order to undertake first steps towards a national implementation plan of the Basel Convention in the country.
The ReduCE-Waste project by the PREVENT Waste Alliance aims to support the Tanzanian government in setting up mechanisms to reduce, control and assess imports of e-waste and develop a national implementation plan of the Basel Convention Guidelines in the country.
In the first two weeks of April the pilot project team organised a port visit, a national stakeholder workshop and a port authorities training in order to bring all relevant stakeholders together and jointly work on methods for dealing with transboundary waste shipments.
First on the agenda was a visit to the port. The project team visited the Dar es Salaam port to acquire more information on the dynamics of e-waste imports in Tanzania and prepare for the training and workshop in the ReduCE Waste project. During the visit, they managed to learn more about the processes of e-waste checks, scans of the ships and the port where loose goods arrive from Zanzibar through wooden ships.
In the next two days a national workshop for setting up an implementation plan of The Basel Convention guidelines in Tanzania took place. More specifically, one of the objectives of the pilot project is to develop a tailor-made regulatory and institutional implementation plan of the guidelines which matches with the Tanzanian regulatory and administrative context and which is realistic, practicable and enforceable. In the workshop all competent and interested authorities and stakeholders in the drafting process were invited to set the scene and co-develop an effective implementation plan.
The final event was a port authorities training. In preparation for pilot activities at national e-waste importation ports, 60 inspectors from port authorities were participating in practical trainings on inspection methods. The workshop comprised practical examples on how to distinguish between WEEE (Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment) and UEEE (Used Electronic and Electrical Equipment) and how to perform functionality tests. Furthermore, an inspection check list was developed.
The project “ReduCE-Waste: Controlling e-waste imports in Tanzania” is one of the pilot projects of the PREVENT Waste Alliance. The meetings were organised by the project partners United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), World Resources Forum, United Republic of Tanzania Vice President´s Office, National Environment Management Council (NEMC) and East African Communication Organisation (EACO).
