Ghana NPAP and World Bank at WRF2021: Financing Roundtable – unlocking a plastics circular economy in Ghana

  • October 5, 2021

As Programme Partners of the World Resources Forum 2021, the Ghana National Plastic Action Partnership and the The World Bank will organise and host the online workshop “Financing Roundtable: unlocking a plastics circular economy in Ghana”, as part of the circular economy conference track. In this short article, the workshop organisers tell us more about the context behind the session, what the workshop will be about and why you should attend it. Don’t miss it on the last day of WRF2021, October 14th, 15.30 – 16.20 CEST!

 

 

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This workshop is jointly organised by the Ghana National Plastic Action Partnership and the World Bank. Before going into the details of your collaboration, let’s begin with an overview of the activities of both organisations. Starting with the Ghana National Plastic Action Partnership – when was this initiative established and with which objectives?

The Ghana National Plastic Action Partnership (NPAP) was established in 2019 as an initiative of the World Economic Forum in partnership with the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI). It serves as the national platform for multi-stakeholder cooperation, facilitating initiatives and funding to scale up and accelerate in-country partnerships that address plastic waste and pollution while contributing to the nation’s progress towards achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The NPAP works closely with over 120 Ghanaian public, private and civil society partners and international organisations. At all levels and across all areas, our work is underpinned by our commitment to advancing gender equity, inclusion, and the livelihoods of traditionally marginalized people and communities. Their articulated challenges and expert guidance make it possible for us to design partnerships and initiatives that will help shape a more sustainable and equitable world for all.

We utilize robust diagnostic tools to analyze the extent of the plastic pollution challenge and also to create a customized plastic action journey that leverages existing activities, identifies high impact solutions and accelerates systems change. The Ghana NPAP creates concrete impact in three key ways: convening communities and curating conversations; generating insights and action roadmaps; and catalyzing strategic financing.

What has this initiative already achieved since 2019?

Since the Ghana NPAP’s inception the platform has been leveraged to:

  • Develop a National Baseline Analysis that identified current and projected (2040) flows of municipal solid plastic waste under a business as usual scenario using a mass flow balance, capturing city, regional and national flow rate and estimated the leakage of plastic pollution into the environment and particularly waterbodies.
  • Develop  a scenario modelling analysis that estimated future plastic waste flows in a number of different possible scenarios.This analysis revealed the potential impact of different intervention ( or a combination of interventions) towards reducing plastic leakage into land and water environments. It also helps estimated the operating and capital costs that would be required to achieve the leakage reduction of various solution pathways
  • Develop an Action Roadmap, a blueprint addressing the country’s plastic waste and pollution and a manual that leads all government, business and civil society in support of that goal.The report summarises the actions and milestones for solving plastic waste issues that were identified by the solution scenario analysis.
  • Conduct a gender analysis to understand the gender roles, barriers, and impacts across the plastics value chain on gender inclusion and women’s empowerment. The objective of the gender baseline analysis is to highlight gender equality gaps along the value chain, which can in turn inform gender policy considerations and recommendations on all national action roadmaps in the plastics and plastic waste management sectors, so that ultimately gender equality outcomes are achieved.

The platform has recently constituted a financing task-force: a group of key actors across the financing ecosystem to support the development of a financing roadmap that will outline recommendations to create an enabling financing environment that incentivises and de-risks investments, to transition into a circular economy.

Coming to the World Bank, how does its mission relate to the problem of plastic pollution?

The World Bank is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries. Its mission is to end extreme poverty, through reducing the share of the global population that lives in extreme poverty to 3 percent by 2030, and increase shared prosperity, by increasing the incomes of the poorest 40 percent of people in every country. Tackling marine plastic pollution and keeping oceans healthy is directly linked to this mission, given the reliance on our oceans for jobs and food.

To address the plastic pollution problem, the World Bank Group is supporting countries across regions in their efforts to address plastic pollution, at every stage of the plastic life cycle, from stopping leakages to the environment to enabling a circular economy. The World Bank has projects worth more than US$2 billion in the pipeline with components focused on plastic pollution prevention. Projects span many sectors, from fisheries to tourism, with most focused on improving solid waste management.

The World Bank Group currently has more than 50 engagements in countries looking at plastic pollution prevention, including Ghana, Bangladesh, Lao PDR, Mozambique, Morocco, Pakistan and the Caribbean. The World Bank is also supporting regional solutions, such as in ASEAN and West Africa. Since 2000, the World Bank has financed or committed more than US$6 billion to improve solid waste management in countries worldwide. As of September 2021, PROBLUE, a multi-donor trust fund which focuses on marine plastic pollution, has committed so far about US$32 million in 56 activities all over the world to help countries address marine plastics.

What projects is the World Bank supporting in Ghana in this specific area?

In Ghana, the World Bank is supporting the Government address plastic pollution challenges through various projects, including the Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development (GARID) Project, a US$200 million investment that is supporting the Government construct and finance a landfill with a material recovery facility, and supporting community-based waste collection in low-income and vulnerable communities. The project is also engaged in the waste management policy dialogue, through support to key policy reforms and waste recovery, including plastic lifecycle/value-chain.

More recently, the World Bank has begun to implement a technical assistance project funded by PROBLUE with aims to enhance the knowledge base on plastic pollution, strengthen evidence-based policy decisions, promote social inclusion, and involve the private sector in improved waste management, reduction of marine litter and plastic pollution by promoting sustainable plastic management (reduce, reuse, recycle), with a focus on the Greater Accra Region (GAR), Ghana.

What will your workshop at WRF2021 be about? What stakeholders will be engaged and what goals does it have?

This session is going to focus on sharing key insights on opportunities to leverage financial tools to unlock circular economy business models to eradicate plastic pollution.  Achieving a comprehensive system change scenario to eradicate plastic pollution and zero leakage of plastics into Ghana’s oceans by 2040 requires an estimated capital investments of US$1.3 billion and operational investments of US$3 billion across the plastic value-chain by 2040, per a recent report by the Ghana NPAP(Action roadmap: A Roadmap for Radical Reduction of Plastic Pollution in Ghana).

Mobilization of needed finance will require new financial tools not currently utilized at scale in the plastics sector in Ghana. Panelists will discuss financial tools that are applicable to the plastic action space and discusses implications for developing and adopting such tools within the national context. The workshop will primarily target members from the financial sector including traditional banks, development banks, impact investment funds, development partners with relevant funding portfolios, public sector as well as key actors along the plastics value-chain.

The session aims to:

  1. Build capacity of the participants to appreciate investment opportunities emerging in the plastics circular economy in Ghana;
  2. Generate new insights on opportunities and limitations to the proposals being explored; and,
  3. Match-make well positioned business leaders with financial institutions.

What excites you about being a program partner of WRF2021?

WRF2021 brings together  a wide array of change-makers – business leaders, policy-makers, academics, and international and grassroots organizations. The Ghana National Plastic Action Partnership and the World Bank Group are excited to be a program partner and to be able to connect  with other stakeholders to exchange best practices  and approaches, as well forge partnerships to collectively tackle plastic pollution and achieve a circular economy.

Finally, let’s conclude with a call for participation. Why should participants attend your workshop and for whom would it be particularly interesting to attend?

We call on financial sector actors including traditional banks, development banks, impact investment funds, development partners with relevant funding portfolios, public sector as well as key actors along the plastics value-chain to participate in this session to listen and also share key insights on opportunities to leverage financial tools to unlock circular economy business models and eradicate plastic pollution.

Learn more about Ghana NPAP and the World Bank

Ghana NPAP

World Bank Group

  • Facebook: www.facebook.com/worldbank
  • Twitter: @WorldBank, @WorldBankAfrica, @WBG_Environment
  • Instagram: @WorldBank
  • Website: www.worldbank.org;
  • PROBLUE website: https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/problue
  • Twitter: #PROBLUE_Oceans

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The World Resources Forum 2021 (WRF2021), under the theme of “A Green Deal for Sustainable Resources” will take place on October 12-14 in an innovative hybrid format: three days of online sessions and two small scale-events in Accra (Ghana) and Zürich (Switzerland). All the workshops, such as the one organised by Ghana NPAP and the World Bank, together with all scientific sessions and plenary sessions will take place online, in a dedicated virtual event platform. WRF2021 is co-hosted by the Ghanaian Ministry for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI) and the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN/BAFU).

Don’t miss the opportunity to be part of this exciting session and learn from all the participants.

Register now for WRF2021!