The Global Secretariat of International Partnership for Expanding
Waste Management Services of Local Authorities (IPLA) will be hosted by
the Bangkok-based Asian Institute of Technology.
The new Partnership aims to bring together local authorities and the
private sector to develop public-private partnerships to tackle the
waste problem and to create a conducive investment climate for
expanding waste management services of local and municipal authorities,
a UN press release said last week.
IPLA will assist local communities in managing ever-increasing amounts
of waste, and the growing presence of chemicals and hazardous toxic
elements in the general waste stream, the press release said.
“The Asian Institute of Technology is pleased to host the Global
Secretariat of IPLA,” said Prof. Said Irandoust, President of AIT. “AIT
will, through active collaboration with IPLA partners, foster bridges
between policy and practice across the local authorities of the world
and build their capacities towards integrated solid waste management
and the application of what are known as 3Rs (reduce, reuse,
recycle).”
President Itrandoust said AIT hopes that IPLA will lead to paradigm
shifts in local level actions to address wastes as resources and move
towards a resource efficient and zero waste society. Prof Rakshit, VP
Research, represented AIT at the official launch of the IPLA at
UN-Headquarters in New York on 13 May 2010.
According to the UN
release, membership in the IPLA partnership is open to all
interested entities that align with its mission in expanding waste
management related services of local authorities. The Partnership will
also contribute to the preparatory process leading to the Rio+20 Summit
in 2012.
According to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, managing
waste has emerged as one of the biggest challenges facing cities and
urban areas. The complexity and daunting nature of waste management
challenges has prompted a more extensive collaboration among the
different stakeholders — governments, civil society, private sector,
local communities, and the United Nations system.
Governments and public utilities, which face enormous resource
challenges in providing quality public services, are increasingly
looking towards collaborating with the private sector for help to
deliver their public service mandate, the UN said.
Prof. Chettiyappan
Visvanathan of Environmental Engineering and Management (EEM) is
leading the initiative on behalf of AIT.
A list of partner organizations that have joined IPLA (as of 12 May
2011) can be found at: www.uncrd.or.jp. For more
information on IPLA, please contact: Dan Shepard, United Nations
Department of Public Information at tel.: +1 212 963 9495, e-mail:
shepard@un.org; Prof. C. Viswanathan, Asian Institute of Technology,
Bangkok, Thailand, at tel.: +66 2 524 5640, e-mail: visu@ait.ac.th; or
Choudhury Rudra Charan Mohanty, United Nations Centre for Regional
Development, Nagoya, Japan, at tel.: +81 52 561 9417, e-mail:
environment@uncrd.or.jp
Prof. Sudip Kumar Rakshit (third from
right) at the launch of IPLA at the United Nations Headquarters in New
York. To his immediate left are H.E. Mr. Hideki Minamikawa,
Vice-Minister for Environment, Government of Japan, and Ms.
Katarina Kummer Peirry, Executive Secretary to the UNEP Secretariat of
the Basel Convention, Geneva.