The “Twin Cities Workshops” were completed (an African city and its partnering “twin” European city met, to collect information and share experiences). They were held in all the twin cities (WP1).
Goal of the TCWs: to frame the baseline scenarios in the African target areas on local e-waste management systems, suggesting potential solutions detailed by a group of experts. Main output: Master Plans for the African cities, where local issues and potential solutions were identified together with short, medium and long-term goals for the municipality.Then‘Action plans’ for the target African areas, whith specific goals and detailed relevant actions.
The experts evaluated the information against the 4 themes, during the Expert Modelling Workshops, held in Johannesburg, Vienna, Rome (Italy), and a final “Plenary Session” in Vienna (Austria) (WP2).
Thanks to the applied methodology, ‘typical scenarios’ were identified and shared via the toolkit, intended to became reference examples.
The EWIT portal and the toolkit were progressively fed by the information collected. Data were structured within a tool called the ‘Knowledge Base’. A “Wizard”, then, brings the user across a self-evaluation test of the context of reference, giving preliminary information on potential solutions to improve the e-waste management system (WP3).
Dissemination and divulgation activities as the promotion of the results of the EWIT project were done in the (WP4). Conferences in the target areas helped sharing the main EWIT outputs and presenting the portal functionalities.
The Project Management structure described in the Grant Agreement. The Advisory Committee – the steering committee of the project –, was established at a meeting in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) on April 2015, at the African Union Commission’s premises.
Communication with the Advisory Committee occurs on a regular basis. The Advisory Committee also gathered for a second meeting online. Another meeting is expected on next September 2016.
Periodic “Project Board Meetings” have been held on a regular basis, as well, (online, via the GoToMeeting conferencing system), along with meetings on specific topics, face to face and online.
Also a meeting involving the EWIT Consortium has been arranged online, via the GoToMeeting platform.
Agendas, supporting documentation and Minutes are available for each of these meetings, through the shared file system (EWIT project Dropbox folder).
Planning activities are ongoing for the second reporting period of the project. (Activities of WP5).
Main outcomes. The TCWs and EMWs represented the ground for deep discussions on several aspects of e-waste management. The most recurrent issues and those deserving a special focus were various:
- The acknowledgement of the informal sector as a relevant system which should be integrated as much as possible in any potential new ‘formalized’ system;
- The exigence of including programs of training and education on the health and environmental issues implied in e-waste management. This awareness campaigns should be targeted both to the e-waste sector employees and the vast public. Equally, also institutions should be educated on the importance of setting a sound system of waste management.
- Discussions on how to financially support the development of an e-waste system bring about a deeper reflection on the concept of EPR, its different applications and the role stakeholders like local authorities and producers can have in contributing to the system.
- The need of setting a EEE and WEEE data management system was widely recognized as a fundamental step enabling the concerned partners to make long-terms considerations on the development of an e-waste management system.
- Legislative-related matters were also under the lens of the EWIT analysis. Particularly, e-waste specific law implementation and enforcement steps were discussed.
