UNESCO Office in Doha

BACKGROUND

The Arab Region with its diverse countries and hundreds of millions of people is currently suffering from a lack of waste-management-capacity, similar to many other regions of the world. Garbage is often being land-filled, and this causes the pollution of air, soil, water, and biota, and it also often causes serious garbage-accumulation near urban ecosystems.  Even if this wasn’t the case, there is a global imperative towards a more efficient use of our limited resources.  This requires a change of thinking, industry and behaviour.

PURPOSE

We aim to provide an impetus towards the development of waste management facilities, protecting the environment by stimulating awareness and demand for recycling facilities, and to illustrate that such an industry is not only desirable, but potentially very profitable.

STRATEGY

The basis of this project begins with changing the attitudes of children, but includes the re-education of adults.  We identify potential partners, and through our awareness campaigns, contests, and media events, we want to develop a focal point for autonomic adoption, self-management, and networking of recycling partners.  The website will function as a central resource of information for educators to help teach sustainability concepts in school as well as offer stakeholders a situational map of recycling capacity.

COOPERATION

Cooperation opportunities revolve around enhancing our awareness campaign.  This can take the form of in kind contributions of time and resources, as well as financial. 

Specific Actions which still require attention include:

• Completing the revamp of the Website
• Financial resources for the purpose:
• of assisting in travel costs for the Pan-Arab dimension,
• development and printing of promotional materials,
• inviting external experts and speakers for events,
• as well as covering other costs as and when they arise ( such as supporting conferences, possible ad campaigns, and wherever in-kind contributions are unavailable etc..).