Bangkok--19 May--AIT
The Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand, has been chosen as the Global Secretariat of the new International Partnership for Expanding Waste Management Services of Local Authorities (IPLA) launched by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) to aid local governments in managing growing waste problems.
The announcement was made by UNCSD on 13 May 2011 at UN-Headquaters in New York.
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, the UN said
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 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 Irandoust 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.
According to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, 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.
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. Prof. Visvanathan can be reached at Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand, at tel.: +66 2 524 5640, e-mail:
[email protected]
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:
[email protected]; Choudhury Rudra Charan Mohanty, United Nations Centre for Regional Development, Nagoya, Japan, at tel.: +81 52 561 9417, e-mail:
[email protected]