Center for Global Commons at the University of Tokyo (CGC) and Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) released their research report titled “National Plastic Action Partnerships [NPAP]: A Multistakeholder Approach to Addressing Plastic Pollution in Developing Countries.” This report summarizes the National Plastics Action Partnership (NPAP), a country-specific platform of the Global Plastics Action Partnership (GPAP), a global platform of the World Economic Forum (WEF) which aims to reduce plastic pollution and waste.
Plastics permeate every part of our daily lives, and have brought to us significant convenience. However, in recent years, the dumping and leakage of plastics into the ocean and the resulting impacts on the environment and human health have created major global crises. The plastic value chain is complex, capacities of source countries are sometimes lacking, and local conditions are diverse, all of which present vast challenges to addressing plastic.
In response to the question of how Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships (MSP) can manage plastic pollution in developing countries, this report reviews and assesses NPAPs in Indonesia, Ghana, and Vietnam based on surveys conducted in those countries. The report examines the challenges of plastic pollution and addresses the need for MSP. It also describes an emerging MSP process in GPAP and its relationship with NPAP in developing countries. The study shows that NPAP aligns divergent interests of various stakeholders, such as their perspectives, targets, priorities, and timelines, to engineer change. Still, the platform has some emerging issues.
Full report