Environmentally and socially responsible handling of e-waste

Project description

Title: Environmentally sound disposal and recycling of e-waste in Ghana
Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)​​​​​​​
Countries: Ghana
Lead executing agency: Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI)
Overall term: 2016 to 2023

Context

Population growth and rising prosperity in Ghana are boosting demand for household and consumer electronics. This is increasing the amount of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). In addition to reusable materials, this waste also contains harmful substances that pose health and environmental hazards if not handled properly. Ghana recognises this challenge and has been developing a legal framework to meet it since 2016. Despite this, few recycling firms in Ghana currently meet the social and environmental standards.

Objective

The Ghanaian Government is successfully implementing an environmentally sound WEEE management system. It has involved all parties with environmental responsibility in the process.

Approach

The project works in three areas:

It advises the Ghanaian Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation and its environmental protection authority in developing funding mechanisms for handling e-waste. It also supports the Ministry in improving its management of the sector. This involves improving government cooperation with the regions and municipalities, and promoting dialogue between the relevant representatives from the industry and the informal economy.

Collaboration with the private sector supports the advocacy efforts of recycling firms. This helps companies develop innovative and financially viable products and services and expand their technical and business knowledge.

The project works with associations in the informal recycling sector throughout the country and provides training. A jointly designed process is intended to reconfigure unregistered scrapyards into environmentally sound centres for resource recovery.

The World Resources Forum and the Öko-Institut (Germany’s Institute for Applied Ecology) are partners of the project, which is implemented technically by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and financially by the KfW Development Bank.

Last update: April 2022