The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> ALAA ABDULAAL: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending this session today. I'm Alaa Abdulaal, Chief ‑ Digital Economy Foresight organization. We are here today to discuss how to have a greener future. Just to grab your attention, I want you all to imagine a line of garbage truck full of e‑electronic waste bumper to bumper, stretching around the globe not once, but twice. Imagine that amount of e‑waste that is there. This is combined all together is what is being generated annually.
This is not just an image that we want, a disturbing image or a dramatic image that I want to give you rather than a reality. Annually, it is projected that it will be around 82 million tons of e‑waste that will be generated by 2030.
So imagine this amount. It's really give us a call, a call to action, to all be responsible to look at this challenge and issue.
As the digital economy continue to grow, the digital economy continues to grow connecting billions of people. It also have a pressing environmental consequences of this progress. The rapid growth of e‑waste is really becoming more and more with more consumers of electronics and mobile phones and home devices, all of this leaving us with this challenge that we want to tackle and we really need to look at it as a shared responsibility not only by government, but by individuals by ourself.
It is a responsibility on everyone in this room and listening to us to take this challenge and really think about it because imagine that there is a lot of e‑waste that's not being recycled. Look at the lost opportunity, not only from an economic perspective, but also from environmental aspect. There is a lost opportunity here all of this e‑waste not being recycled and having those devices reaching to places where there is a need for it.
We are also now facing a challenge of affordability of devices, so why not cease this opportunity? Look at this e‑waste and see how it can be recycled, how it can be managed.
And again, as I said, it's not a government responsibility or a private sector responsibility. I believe it's a shared responsibility on each individual. We are the one who are consuming those electronics, those mobiles, those devices. What are we doing with them?
If I ask to raise hand how many devices do we have more than one in the room. Who has more than one device in the room? Yeah, a majority of room is raising their hand. What did you do with your old devices? How many times are you buying new devices? So it's just to think about this.
For us as the digital cooperation organization, we are looking at how to have that inclusive and sustainable growth of the digital economy, we saw this is an opportunity for us to gather stakeholders and to look at this challenge and see what we can do and specifically from across‑boarder e‑waste management because DCO is committed to this mission, and through our e‑waste management program initiative, we aim to foster circular economy in the ICT sector advance cross‑borders solution. And leverage technology to mitigate environmental harm.
Today, in this workshop, we want to share our work and we want to hear from you and to give us insights on what we are doing because we believe in a multistakeholder approach, we believe in learning from other, and listening from experts like the one in the room, and for to us have that comprehensive solution because, again, we believe we want to give a fair opportunity for each person, each nation, each business, to prosper in a cross‑border inclusive digital economy.
So thank you everyone for being here today. Looking forward to hear from you to be engaged in this interactive workshop. I want to give the floor to my colleague Dr. Dr. Syed Iftikhar H. Shah to have his word.
(Applause)
>> DR. SYED IFTIKHAR H. SHAH: Thank you, Miss Alaa, for giving more insight about the DCO, particularly the e‑waste management initiative.
Basically, first of all, I give some introduction about the DCO more in detail because DCO is established November 2020 and we are aggressively working on different aspects.
So DCO is a unique multilateral, intergovernmental, organization and continues to support the stakeholders, particularly the government businesses and the individuals for emerging areas in terms of digital economy.
One of the challenges is the sustainability. And we're working cooperating with our membership and countries of the world how we tackle this challenge. So DCO, as per the structure, we have 16 member states. We also have observers, more than 40. These observers, more than 40, are from international additions, private sectors, and NGOs as well. We also have a partnership with international like UN, World Economic Forum, so this is somehow our structure. We have core functions. We are information provider, we are educator, we are facilitators, so this is somehow Digital Cooperation Organization structure.
As I said, we have 16 memberships and we represent 800 million population. Notably, 70% of the population is huge, so as we have with youth and youth are more focused digital areas, particulary digital devices so that's why we need to care about more on the sustainability aspect from environmental aspects, from the health aspects. Our member states have GDP about USDP about 3.5 trillion.
You see on the screen first, you see a word DSA, digital space accelerator. Basically, it's a working group of think tank researcher, policymakers, and individuals and we gather these working group on different international foras.
In this year, we also organized different roundtables. What exactly the objective of this DCA is to focus, what exactly the emerging issues in digital economy and how we solve these challenges. We keep all these stakeholders on board to discuss, to cocreate the possible solution to tackle the emerging challenges in digital economy and one of the challenges is the sustainability.
So why we keep this DSF program. Basically, it has impact. We want to create impactful solutions. Another, we want to present our organizations as a credible source of information because our name is more focused on the cooperation, we are expand cooperation as well.
In this year, we have different topics and one of the topics is on e‑waste management and particulary focused on the cross‑boarder e‑waste management.
In 2024, DCO focused on sustainability and we are focusing on e‑waste management program. So this program, as I told you, the DCO is more focused on to concentrate on to address challenges through stakeholders and how we manage these challenges, there are different ways. One of the things, we want to reduce this e‑waste, number one. Second is that we want to evaluate the economic value of the e‑waste. We also focus on the digital inclusion.
So the scope of this project is mainly is to analyze the best practices and to utilize these practices to tackle the challenge of e‑waste. And the second major objective is to the cocreate, the holistic framework to cover all aspects, regulatory aspect, capacity building aspect, financial dimensions, and last, how we promote digital inclusion. This is also one of the keys for this project.
I stop here. I invite our experts, Ari, to give you more insight about the digital process. Thank you. Ari, please.
>> ARIANNA MOLINO: Hello. Everyone. Nice to meet you. I am Arianna Molino. I'm a sustainability specialist at Kearney, helping and collaborating with the DCO on this, I think, very passionate and very interesting initiative because as Miss Alaa was mentioning, it's an urgent problem. We love technologies. I think we are addicted to technologies. Our kids will definitely also use more and more of it, so if we want to have a digital economy, we need to tackle this issue and making sure that's sustainable.
For today's session, what we would like to do, really have an engagement with you, as mentioned, giving your expertise and also I hope that from different part of the world, it would be great to get your perspective.
On one side, we want to discuss the importance of e‑waste in your countries or for your sector. The second objective would be to also try to link the environmental issues and the social benefits. So how do you see the reuse of devices to tackle digital, to bridge the use digital divide?
Third, we believe in collaboration. It's obvious because DCO supports cooperation, but we really believe that you cannot do a work independent. It's a complex system. If you start working alone, you will definitely not reach economy of scales, profitability is an issue, so this is where we really encourage to have discussions and to understand your lesson learned, so through collaboration, what did you gain? What did you learn? And also, the challenges on how we can collaborate together.
Miss Alaa, mentioned it's national focus, but also cross‑border because I think it will be great here in this forum where it's global to understand if it's possible to have collaboration between countries. Cross‑border e‑waste trade is under the Basel Convention. It's kind of regulated and we definitely need to be responsible on how we trade e‑waste, but also, we believe that there is a lot of potential in order to leverage technologies and making sure that we don't duplicate infrastructure around the world if we can work together to reach efficiency.
These are the main objectives. We wanted to have introduction but, I see that maybe we're a little bit too many. We will have a poll online where we will start understanding from which country you are, from which also sector, et cetera, I really encourage you ,if you want to intervene, please do, because really we see that if you start talking to each other, at the end, it would be really amazing if you start bouncing ideas among you.
We are here just to facilitate, but really, if you go out from this session, with more energy and more hope for setting up a business or really scaling up your efforts in terms of policy, that would be amazing.
>> ALAA ABDULAAL: I totally agree with Arianna. It is important. We are here to listen and hear from you. Without your inventions and feedback, this session will not be effective. Yes, I really encourage you to be interactive and share your insights with us.
>> ARIANNA MOLINA: Of course, we have microphones so we can also be a star with microphone.
Also, to set up a little bit the agenda, after this brief introduction, we will talk about e‑waste, you know already the basics, but just to remind us about the big numbers, the big pictures, to kind of phase out and understand what is the environmental impact, the social impact, but also the economic potential.
And then looking into the value chain because we know that the issue is not just recycling. It's like collection. It's sorting. Really taking the private sector together with the social sector and the informal one we need to remember, at the end, each country is going through a certain level of evolvement, so we really would like to see and discuss with you the value chain.
Second, part would be on digital divide and e‑waste. I think we need remind ourself, before recycling, we can reuse and redeploy because circular strategies, need to close the loop early on. It's great potential to use this in order to then create a new market to give access to a potentially part of the population that cannot buy new a iPhone every two years. So we'll talk a little bit about that.
Finally, cross‑border and donational collaboration. Here would be great to see if we can split into groups, or if we have enough energy, we can also see among you if you want to raise your hand in terms of potential ideas that you have grabbed or that you have also experienced and you are doing in your organization or country.
Again, raise your hands if you want to intervene. I think everything is very valuable, so really not shy away.
[Audio difficulties]
So E‑waste. This figure was already mentioned by Miss Alaa, but just to tell you about the growth. speaker mentioned.
In 2010, it was estimated, of course, there is no really a precise date, but estimated 34 million. This is projected to more than double in 20 years.
So I'm not sure if you have kids or not, but I started the projection from my kids and was like, okay, if I don't start to tackle it now, we will have like plenty of waste, but also, we will not have raw material. So I'm not sure if my kids will have a phone when it will be 30, 50. We can debate if it's good or not for kids not to have phones, but know in general, the growth is very, very scary.
On the other side, you might say if the recycling rate are going up, at least we are tackling it. Unfortunately, that is not really good news because recycling rate are not going up as the e‑waste going up.
Now, on average, in the world, we have almost 20% recycling rate. The ambition is to arrive to at least 60, 80. So just to clarify, we know that 100% definitely will not happen in five years. So the international organization really trying to push the emission at least to 60 and 80 and we will see what is the impact there.
So if we then say, okay, why we are doing it. One side, environment. If you do not recycle well, it's not just that you pollute the air, the land, the soil, the water, but also, there is risk for the well‑being, so that is where you have the impact environmental impact that is affecting both environment and society.
Here, there are estimates of like 145 billion of CO2 emissions in the environment. Is it 50% of the global emission? No, but this really is contributing to it and we have high potential to lower it down to making sure that we close the loop in society sector.
Former workers that are affected, 11 million. We want to hear really your opinion on informal sector because talking with UNITAR, different organization, they would say informal sector is great because in the end they are really embedded in the society. They are really working in like in different areas of city, so you don't, they're not per se wrong or you need to really dismantle it, but you need to help them to follow probably some compliance rule or any way to be careful of the environment and the people.
Here, it was mainly the environmental impact, but then also, if we really think about the social impact in terms of digital divide, and we try to close the loop early on, we really redeploying just 1% of the smartphones and like 5 billion smartphones in one year. 5 billion, right? Like just to let it sink. We can really help 50 million people at least. So that is where we are in this forum, there's a lot of talks about bridging digital divide, how to bring internet in the rural areas, et cetera, and it is part of it. The other part is the device. Of course, if you have the device and you don't have internet, solving partially the issues, but in this workshop, it would great to also to get your opinion about this topic.
Again, people are like a little skeptical about it. They are saying normally you pretend is it a redeployed device you and send to the south of the world, but in reality, it's just e‑waste, right? So also, how you make sure that you are doing this upcycle in the right way that touched the people in need.
And then economy because, on one side, yeah, driven by the environment issues and the social causes. It's important. On other side, I think it's also great to remind us that we are talking about GDP impact. If you have more people affected in terms of health, they will go to the hospital. You have cost on that.
If you have impact on the soil on longterm, you will have also impact on agricultural, on your economy.
If you have climate change, you will have impact on the different disasters that we see now where sometimes, especially if you have Islam or different cities that are not set up for this climate disaster, you have human impact and economic impact.
So here in the global e‑waste monitor 2024, you can see an interesting calculation that, at the moment, with this 20% recycling rate, we are losing globally 37 billion, but as soon as we start the recycling, we can have a net positive impact. Why? Because on one side, are you creating a market. You are creating economy activities. Then less people are healed, so less people go to the hospital and have to pay for medical care.
On the other side also, you have less impact on the environment, so less also pollution and green gas emission. It is true that this type of concept relates more to government. At the end, the government is one that will allocate funds for also the health care, funds for the environment, et cetera, so this really to also arrive to government's level and tell them investing even more in the private sector, social sector. Doesn't really stop into the e‑waste management, but goes beyond at your global, national global economy.
Here, we have done a couple of workshops. One in London last week where we had market and private sectors and NGOs coming in and tell us their point of view on the policies and challenges.
We had also in Singapore and with also private sector and policymaker that were discussing how the e‑waste in Malaysia and in Singapore. And finally, also here Riyadh with the GDC countries where we focus mainly on kind of policies.
What we have identified are five main best practices. On one side, collection system is important. We saw some countries that invested into recycling infrastructure, but they don't have feed stock. Then you don't have, then your economy will not, profitability will not stand, so collection is important.
Another point is if you raise awareness with consumer, but don't give them the access to recycle, to bring the device, then they are like, okay, you are telling me to do it, but I don't now how to do it, so you lose the momentum.
The second one is consumer awareness once you have at least set up some access points, right, as Miss Alaa was saying. I was also discussing with my colleagues that, I'm not sure about you, but I have a bag in my home with all the cables of my old phones, et cetera, that I, with this project, I start to say, okay, where I to put it, how, what is the impact, et cetera, but it's not something that everybody knows and especially the collection system, all this system will really change from Spain to Saudi, for example.
Economy of scale. In a lot of countries, both private and public sector, told us that they wants to do recycling facilities, but they don't have enough feed stock to make it profitable and that is where, on one side, if you increase the collection, most probably you will be kind of profitable, but on the other side, you maybe need one side to think broadly on collaboration and how potentially you can work with other countries or other part of municipality, et cetera, to consolidate and making sure that you're not setting up small facilities around the territory that one is profitable and then everybody needs to close or have subsidies, so economy of scale is important.
Private sector, talking with private sector, they really want to get involved. Of course, there are a lot of opinion about policy. Okay, we need to change. This is about legacy technologies also have to be updated, this is too strict, this is too broad. I think what's the key message that came up from this workshop is that government alone cannot centralize because e‑waste is also spread in the territory, so you need to enable, but the private sectors also have the appetite to come and to build strong supply chain and value chains. So here is where, like depending on the regional policies and the regional relationship, you can really think on how I can work between, for example, between Saudi Arabia and Oman to making sure that if I specialize on recycling on one type of e‑waste or one type of battery, then I receive the feed stock, but then I don't have to do the recycling of that type of material because then I can collaborate and then I can send it there.
So this exchange and this promotion of e‑waste cross‑border trade, I think it's important, but also sharing lesson learned because there is no one system fits all. First of all, we are very different in terms of society, like doing some policies in Ghana and doing policies here in Saudi Arabia, right? So this is where maybe collaborating between the GDC countries that can help saying, okay, what did you do that works? What did you do that didn't work? So maybe can we try to test it together? Can I try to learn your governance, your policies, your EPR implementation? So this is really a call to action on collaboration.
I will now stop talking. Maybe before doing this slido, I want just to open the floor for maybe reactions. I know that you need to be brave to be the first one talking because everybody is like, as soon as I shared, someone wants ‑‑ okay, perfect. We have a volunteer.
>> MOHAMMAD MASHAKA: Thank you.
Hello. My name is Mohammad Mashaka from the United Republic of Tanzania. Eastern part, East African country back there.
One of the areas that I think we are really facing as a challenge is the literacy to our citizens because most of these citizens, they aren't aware of the impact of these e‑waste on different initiatives that they are doing.
Maybe the issue is we are trying to look on the case studies whereby the countries have these strategies towards e‑waste, and probably the guidelines towards the safe usage of this ICT and all infrastructures so they can be aware of that.
So one of the biggest challenges that I've seen which is actually coming across, is the literacy level of the people and how effective we are really going to do it. So I think there is a need to have an e‑waste strategy and probably a guideline for the e‑waste as well.
In the awareness campaign needs to go to the people, as you have mentioned, we have the low income people, the people who are actually in the informal sectors, they are the ones who are much more affected in this, so there's a need to increase much effort. So we really appreciate into that.
That's the comment I wanted to add. Thank you.
>> ARIANNA MOLINO: Thank you very. Maybe we have someone that wants to.
>> IMAN: Hello. Good morning. My name is Iman Arbat from Jordan. First of all, I am not expert in e‑waste, but I like the concept. I would like to ask you about best practices in the last slide, please, because I have the same issue. I have some e‑waste, but I don't know where I can send it to and the organization, how we can collect what is the effective collection systems for the best practice about consumer awareness.
Maybe I will rise some about privacy concerns. See, when I talk to my wife or to my colleague, they this phone have my photo. Even I delete it, but we still believe that this device still have many photos or money personal information, and for that in the home, instead of recycling it.
Thank you.
>> ALAA ABDULAAL: Anyone wants to ‑‑ Yes.
>> I wanted to say ladies first, but we are two ladies. Hello. My name is Noya. I'm from the small Pacific Island country of Tuvalu.
Very nice presentation. The Pacific is very vulnerable to climate change and are you mentioned something about climate change and how e‑waste contributes to solving all of that.
We have very unique challenges due to our geographic location and our isolation. We have very limited infrastructure and resources are constrained as well. My question is around the recycling and reprocessing. Are there any cost‑effective recycling solutions suitable for small scale and more decentralized systems in the Pacific?
And also, can e‑waste be repurposed or upcycled locally to create some economic opportunities? In a way, because we are too far away from where the e‑waste are processed, and shipping is also a challenge for small Pacific Island countries, so reprocessing and up‑cycle of those waste can be, we are looking at leveraging as an economic opportunity.
Thank you.
>> DR. NADWELL: Thank you. My name is Dr. Nagwell. I am from academia from Egypt.
Actually, my question is related to if there are any intention in your organization to measure the e‑waste especially, but I noticed all the figure presented are estimated figure and for globally. It's worse and it would be useful to think about following the methodology in order to measure e‑waste as well as to see the impact when you set some policies or strategies and implementation of these policies, you can see how there is improvement in place due to the implementation of these policies.
So I think this is very important not only for the Kingdom, I think maybe for the region as well because you can, after this, you can also share this with the others whether it is on international level or regional level as well.
Thank you very much and congratulations for such wonderful work for engineer Alaa and Arianna. Thank you.
>> ALAA ABDULAAL: Thank you for all the different questions. I will try to address very briefly. I think during the presentation, we will see also their kind of example of initiatives, and I will also encourage you to reply to one another. So if you know some awareness campaign that works, please raise your hand and say, in our country, we do this and was successful, et cetera.
I think we have one question about how you do consumer awareness. Another one is about collection, how does it work and data privacy. And then how does it make us, what are the different recycling processes that make sense for a small country and small economy.
So consumer awareness. Short answer, it takes time. It's not something that you can do from one day to another. I like the sentence, repetition is communication. You need to hear one message once, twice, three times before really understanding and reaching all the population.
I think what works well is government awareness campaign, but mainly working with the NGOs that are on the ground. That is where you need to really access different type of channels. So it's, of course, internet. A lot of us are on the web. It's about also on‑the‑ground workshops of this type of event that we are doing, but then going face‑to‑face with the informal sectors and trying to make them aware of the challenges.
Of course, the more on the ground you are, practical example you will need to give. You cannot go to a small area, small village in Zambia and say, you know the impact e‑waste is 58 billion. That will not work. You can make example of if you don't recycle, then you will impact the health for the lungs, et cetera, that might be a little bit more concrete example. It takes time and you need to leverage social sector with the different channels.
Collection system, great question. So on one side, private sector, social sector, and government. Private sector, now with some policies of EPR, of extended producer responsibilities, a lot of companies needs to take your phone back. So the first things is you want to give me the iPhone back. If you want one, talking also iPhone, sorry, Samsung, you want a phone, you need the give other phone back. You need to give the other phone back. Reverse logistics, right? Not going to go into the discussion if it makes sense or not economically for the producers, but this is one channel.
The second one, again, for the private sector, they sometimes put the different boots where you can drop the technologies. Of course, if there's data security, we'll talk later. You might not be comfortable just to put it in a box. Then there are others, kind of cables where it might be fine with it.
Social sector or kind of organization. There are organizations that, on behalf of the producer, will then organize the collections, so that is where it is important, again, on the territory, and then it's very clear who does it and what is the purpose for this. So that NGOs connected with consumer awareness, then accessibility.
The last one is government. I saw that before here was Abdul Aziz from CSD from KSA, regulator. They did a great initiative Recycle My Device where they tackle both of the questions you had.
First of all, I saw that in KSA, but it's in most of the countries, there is a lot of concern about privacy, where my photo will go, right? Even if I delete it, I also don't know. If I delete it, I'm not sure, they're probably there. There's always some magic geek that resuscitates that. At least when I delete, I hope there's someone will do it for me.
So they see that in some countries, government have the trust, and so some consumer are okay to hand the device to the government, so they will reassure you that the data will be the first one that will be kind of erased in a secure way beforehand handing over to another actors in supply chain.
Now, this doesn't work in China, for example. China, they don't trust to give to the government, right? They trust the private sector more than that government, correct. Then you have to understand, in your country, what is the culture, right? I'm Italian. I'm not sure if I will trust my government, right? Also private sector, questionable.
For example, in China, we know that private sector will have more better trust. In the London workshop, there was specifically one company that was dedicated on data, erasing data and make it secure.
That is where you need to build trust, you need to build technologies, et cetera, but long story short, this is a pain point, pain point that, yes, we need to be addressed and not just once you're aware to throw your phone, you're happy to do it.
>> For the privacy perspective, some like government policies, as well some advanced countries, they have policies for when they export the e‑waste, particularly electronics, so they mentioned specialty classes that they need to discard the hard data. This is where the data is stored.
So usually, government, national level policies, they mentioned categorically to don't like export the storage devices.
>> ARIANNA MOLINA: Indeed. So it started with policies, then implementation, right? So as always.
Then there are people that say, how are you making sure that the policies really gets enforced? That is another topic we can discuss later.
Then going maybe to the question of what small economies or small islands can do, I think upcycle and recycle is the first thing that needs to be done, first of, all because you close the loop earlier and you extend life of the device.
There are some culture where secondhand is better accepted than others. And yeah, we know that in Africa, for example, they are really super good in it, while in Italy, to be honest, if I have something broken, I always go to my grandpa because old generation know how to do it I'm the one who is not really comfortable sometimes to fix different devices.
So first of all, it's upcycle and recycle. What are the, what recycling business is more profitable or makes sense. I would say focus on dismantling because then you connect extract the plastic, plastic can go in any plastic recycling. Or then extract the glass so the glass can then go not only on e‑waste recycling, but can be on glass recycling for another industries. Probably will not have the volume to do batteries that you will need to, but good news is that critical raw material are more and more a hot topic nowadays can you translate it at economical advantage. I can sell you that because, soon, if we continue like this, we will not have more material.
So in order make batches for new e‑vehicle, we will not have lithium, et cetera, so you will need to recycle, so this is where you will come to have kind of fixed stock.
Of course, logistics might be an issue, but than can be, again, something to valuate to see the numbers in order to do the business case.
Last but not least, data. So you're talking with a consultant that needs data collection, so I feel the pain. We try go to different countries and different representatives and say, okay, we go to the source. You, as the government, that look at e‑waste, can you please give us country data?
That is where you understand that, first of all, there is no common understanding of e‑waste. The definition, you always have to step back and say, no, it's not just phone. Six categories, et cetera, okay. This is where maybe it's not just one department. Maybe two or three departments.
Then to be honest, in this region, there are still kind of step towards it.
KSA now, in the last two years, is launching one initiatives for data, kind of data collection, but also mapping all the different supply chain on waste in general, so that is where you can start having a little bit more granularity.
But then you can see some efforts also using technologies because, again, I think can ICT really be leveraged for this type of problems and so you have platforms where maybe you are not really tackling the data across the value chain, but you're putting together maybe the collectors with recyclers that has to exchange e‑waste. At see you see all the transaction and start really understanding what's going on at least in that part of the supply chain.
So this is happening. There are different countries that are doing it, and also e‑waste trade because they have to enter your border and exit at least in that transaction. You can start to have control over it.
Now, issue, classification. Some do not classify as e‑waste because most of the times, it's illegal. Ban, ban on export, ban on import, so sometimes wrongly defined as electronics, so that is where, of course, you will need to have more enforcement.
We are also thinking about it. So with Miss Alaa and Dr. Syed, we are also trying to tackle this and maybe give some lesson learning 2025.
So, conscious of time, but thank you for the ‑‑ I hope we discuss, and later on, we can also have a better, deeper discussion. Dr. Syed told me that you are a little bit late. Italian style, I'm talking a lot.
So now, we are in IGF, so now, yes, you can take your phone, some have already anticipated this moment already have the phone. SLIDO, you can scan this code and you can access it. Ideally, will not fail. That would be magic. The first question is pretty simple. I think everybody know the country where they are from.
Now, if you are from one country and representing another one, up to you what you want to put.
We will see them the different results. I'm really happy that see different countries represented here. So Thailand, Maldives, Tonga. Maybe I know who are from the Netherlands. Saudi. We have five participants. I think in this room, there are a little bit more than five. So I encourage everyone, if it's possible, to participate. It's anonymous as you can see. It's really to start. Then later on, we will try to connect the different solutions, different issues. Tuvalu. Two Netherlands.
You can join the poll also later. It will be a couple of questions.
The next question is which sector you are representing. If it's private sector, public sector, or social third sector. Help us understanding you're more interested into policies, you are more interested into solution implementation, more in kind of awareness and collaboration for different impacts.
We have public sector that almost half of the audience, and then also private sector. Social sector is kind of less. If you know policymakers on one side and you know business on this side, I really encourage you to discuss because that is where we see the most interesting debate.
Of course, policymaker need to arrive to some compromises in defining the regulations, but then you have here some businesses that really, not really feel the pain, but really to implement it, right. You're from different countries so it's not really they are pointing you specifically. Great.
So E‑waste, if you have to think one word, two words like about e‑waste after this 40 minutes of discussions, what do you think? Probably there will be still some repetitions. This is really to test which part of the e‑waste you are more concerned or passionate, if you want to.
I like infinity loops. Wow. The infinity loops also need to do this type of workshop because the wording is very good. Different campaigns about awareness. And use electronic materials. Collection. Environmental justice, I like that. Kind of just transition, environmental justice, expand life span, yeah. As I was mentioning, not just a matter of recycling. We need to extend the life of the devices. Great.
So reuse, recycle. Great. Perfect.
Now that we want to test the issue that you see how much do you think it's important e‑waste in your country. It's not that you have to say, it's horrible, because I did a presentation, right? If you also feel that it's tackling or there's not enough volume really, so it's not yet significant, but it's increasing and moderately significant.
So you see, after this presentation, at least it's not that everybody thought, okay, it's not super significant, I think this is a good take‑away that the urgency is not there yet either because of facts or perception.
Let's see. Of course, we need data to arrive at some conclusion. This, we will for each country, we will understand case‑by‑case.
So yeah, it's not significant, but it will come, so better to be prepared and proactive rather than reactive.
So here, about collaboration. Are you collaborating or not? When we were in the other workshop, this was a big debate, like super complex. I want to collaborate, but I don't know with whom.
Other are like, no, I base my business on collaboration because it's very complex and I need to be interrelated with other organization in order to be successful.
Yeah, also workshops, like, I don't collaborate, but it would be great to do it.
This is also for the policymakers because, for example, in Ghana, they are very, kind of mature in terms of policies and they have a lot of discussions with formal sector and private sector.
Now, there are critics that say that like they are, they did a lot of policies, but then the private sector is not able to implement or cannot enforce it, but there is this kind of culture of different workshops, different working groups, to enable the collaboration.
On the other, there is other countries where like, for example, Oman, they are still starting to work with the private sector. Great.
You want to start, you have a lot of people here that potentially are passionate about it. Probably will not do e‑waste trade between Tanzania and Netherlands, probably that will not be the most effective in terms of impact of emission, but still feel free to. Then after, grab and know each other to see if there is any potential option.
Maybe just going back, like I have already explored and activated some. I think it's amazing that no one has a lot of collaboration actively. This tells a lot the maturity of the system and how much still we are working in silos.
Not sure if someone wants to talk about collaboration that they had so far set up and with whom and why, mainly the why because the driver is important, why you're doing it. It is because of economic profitabilities, because of kind of operation, you need feed stock. Or it is for designing the solution together.
No volunteer? Maybe later on, someone will be adventurous.
Now, barriers. Barriers to scale up the collaboration. We said, okay, maybe I want to start. Maybe I want to do more. I think there was at least one saying I'm not interested. For the one that would like to really scale up the collaboration, why you're not doing it? It because I don't have funds or there is no financial mechanisms that helps me collaborating? Or do I need to, there is a lack of awareness or policies. Don't have the data so I don't know where to turn around.
Here, like lack of infrastructure, ICT enablers, doesn't seem to be. Okay, jumping up so maybe hold our conclusion until everybody has replied. Just your what we have seen is that financial drivers or mechanisms are not really aligned with the profitability of the value chain, so mainly comments that we had in London last week was that, financially, it's not really kind of profitable or to, for example, reuse and repair. It costs more to reuse and repair, so what you do is just recycle. That is something that, as a government, you need to adjust because you want to close the loophole early on.
And again, if someone wants to raise hands for questions or comments, really, please do.
Awareness, I think also here, we had the first comment. Awareness is the first barrier. Also, investment. And yeah, that is where I think the world still have a lot to do.
Then we have just one question, then we can move on with the digital divide.
What potential initiatives would you recommend? Here, if it's too long to write, also you can just open the floor for discussion.
Just to give some examples, again, collaboration in KSA with the government, working with the social sector that would collect the device and governor will be the one that guarantee that privacy is respected, then will connect also with the producer, or for the teleco company to ensure that it will also start doing awareness for their consumers to tell them, okay, you have a new device or modem, bring back and then I will give you a new one. So that is one, that collaboration as we saw in KSA.
Okay. So your potential solution or potential initiatives, solution is, yeah, collaborate, collaborate and collaborate. It's about reward system. That is interesting. It's due also to financial, to the second challenge that we have discussed.
Reward, as always, in this world, in this economy, you need to have a reward in order to be really motivated because, at the end, you need to have financial sustainability as you will not do kind of a business.
So at the end, is this why EPR sometimes works because then you then EPA because you give the responsibility to the producers so at the front of the value chain, that is where they have to increase their price or cost in order then to manage till the end of life. That will help you potentially some reward when you give back the phone and you have X money back.
Of course, it will not be after like few years that you use one device, you cannot value $100, but still, that small reward can be pennies, but for some people, it's good enough.
Like in Germany, sometimes put the bottles and you have two cents, five cents. Still, it's something that kind of worked for consumers.
Using AI to support for that, I think like we can also open the floor how technologies, how A.I. can help. I don't know who wrote that or if you want to, or she wants to elaborate more.
In the workshop in Singapore, there were a lot of discussions also how to integrate A.I. and other technologies in the warehouse, of the different companies to understand the values of the product when they depreciate to bring back to optimize, that was also quite stimulating as conversation.
Doing policies, yeah.
Public awareness and behavioral change. Launch campaigns to get consumers. Encourage cultural shift. To repair and reuse. Great. Thank you everyone.
Now I want to link this to the digital divide. I think we already have mentioned it before, how we can promote e‑waste and then also do that, promote this reuse of devices in the part of the population.
So if you think about reuse of electronics, you as a company or you as a policymaker, why would you do it? It's because you think about the environment. You think about because of the social. You think about the brand and corporate responsibility or the governance, or your think about the economics. So the ESG and also the profitability.
So here, I want really to test the driver. Why would you reuse or you would encourage to reuse or repair the device? You can, I think, choose up to two. One driver or reward to connect to the previous CSR or brand. Private sectors can really use that to communicate their commitments to sustainability.
Of course, it should not be like just green washing. It should be substantiated by a real initiative there, but to be honest, I think it's good enough, right? If this helps, as a business, to be positioned in the market, as someone that cares about the environment, et cetera, it's more than fair to leverage that.
I think here, I'm surprised, yeah about like the socially impact, it's very prominent here, at least about a third talked about it. Sometimes, if you talk to people about e‑waste, social divide doesn't come naturally to mind.
If you start talking about, what about reuse, et cetera, think, maybe. I think in the south of the world, the association is stronger.
If you start to go Europe, et cetera, there, I don't think it's something very prominent, so just to gain some cultural change differences.
Economic job creation with environment is the least. This is, again, maybe one side of the environment is next to awareness. You don't know what is the impact of reuse, so that is where I think awareness will definitely help.
And economic job creation. A lot of companies were saying it's not profitable. Why should I do it? It's better to recycle.
I pay for this device to collect, I have to repair, I have to then probably send around the world and the margin are not high, right? So the economics, they're not going to make incentive for it, so do you do either policies or reward system to making sure people are incentivized? People and businesses, right.
Going a little bit, I think two more. Then we can see either to divide into groups. But due to time, I think not a lot of sharing of ideas, so maybe we will see how to structure that one.
Here, rank your concern and barriers about this topic. Your concerned about the complexity of the value chain. Concerned about, I don't know what is the demand. Don't know really how many devices, repair devices I will sell, do I have to promote? Why I have go into this business?
Some are concerned about the quality. If you also do secondhand microwave, you are maybe like a little bit worried that it will explode in your hands or your kids' hands.
Other mentioned export and import because sometimes you cannot export or you cannot import used devices or waste, right? That is where sometimes there are some barriers to bring from Europe, for example, to the south.
There are also barriers that were mentioned about critical and now, there's a new regulation in Europe that promotes critical material recycling in Europe, so even if one device can be used for repair, it will maybe stay in Europe because the critical material are predominant.
Here, complexity of the supply chain in the winner, and the second, quality and reliability. The complexity, I think that also comes about data, comes about awareness, and comes also about probably the maturity of the market.
Second one, quality and reliability, that you need to have standards because sometimes if you don't have standards, you don't really one device will recycle or repair properly. So for some, probably a phone, you're okay‑ish, most of that will not explode in your hands, but there are others where probably you don't want to access it because of that concern.
Unethical trade and dumping. Go to the third one. This is something that we have tested especially for trade. Then, yeah, can give my device, but also clothes, right, but then probably will go to the landfill, so do I trust it? Matter of transparency, matter of awareness, if really what is claimed really will happen.
So here, again, more for cross‑boarder e‑waste. I think also, we can talk on the microphone. It's too much rather than typing. If you have done already or you think there is some initiative that you believe are valuable, what could be, like between collectors producers, maybe also thinking about Egypt or about the island or KSA, what might be.
Maybe it's lunchtime. Maybe everybody is looking forward for a break. I promise it's almost done. Last 10 minutes of brain power. I think there is one participant, I think. We will wait for the brave one. I promise, I will not call out. You are safe. Two? Okay.
As a sharing initiative that UNITAR told us to do is go really on the ground and follow the informal sector, the speakers to really collect the data, as one of the points was mentioned before, and really to understand the complex supply chain.
Great. So global regulation. Then responsible recycling certification. That is nice. Yeah, certification or standards that will then reassure you that the quality is there.
Having collection points and doing campaign and if you are, yeah, EPR is something that a lot of countries in the world are not doing it.
Also, for global regulation, just to connect it with this year, we are working on a framework for government, so targeting government, not private sector, and tell them what are the key components that they need to do.
So maybe ending with that, the key components of the framework are this one. So government, we believe that first they need to think about regulation and policy and strategies, of course, based on data because if you base it on fingers in the air, most probably will not be that effective.
Financial instrument, again reward. Once you understand what comes into your pocket and goes out, right. You need to balance it, and in order to foster and give incentives to the private sector, to the social sector, you need to have EPR strategies, EPR fees makes sense for the ecosystem.
Awareness and capability building. Here, awareness for consumers and also support business. Sometimes also businesses like are not aware that maybe that component is really e‑waste and they are dumping it.
Capability building, also the government needs to learn about it. I mean, it's like a new topic somehow, so like the government, people in the government, for example, to understand the vapes, big debate last week in London about the vapes are electronic devices, super like increase in volumes, et cetera, and the legislature don't know how to manage that topic. Again, capability building everywhere.
Finally, infrastructure and technologies. You need to have infrastructure for recycling. Also dismantling it. Not just a matter of mechanical or chemical recycling. Also the infrastructure for collection dismantling, et cetera, and technologies, ICT. And in this forum, ICT can be also great tool for it.
With this, we were planning to do the discussion in groups. I think based on the time and based also on this setup of the rooms and participation, I can just give the microphone to Alaa or Dr. Syed for the final remarks.
Thank you everyone. You made it almost to 1:00. Thank you.
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>> DR. SYED IFTIKHAR H. SHAH: Thank you very much for your active participation. I think it's very two‑way communication and we get a lot of information from you. And as we told them, this initiative is we are calculating the framework and definitely we incorporate your framework.
This framework is not only for the DCO membership, but this framework for the whole countries of the world.
So thanks again for your feedback and participation. Thank you.
>> ALAA ABDDULAA: Thank you. One thing we can get out of this session with the theme of responsibility that this challenge is in the hands of each, the solution is in the hands of each one of us. This would be, for us, we have achieved a great goal and this is a call of action to be part of the solution, to build a future, a greener future, a more sustainable economical future for everyone.
Thank you for joining us and hope that we can hear from you on your feedback. Thank you so much.
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