UK Minister launches UNEP waste management project in Southern Sudan

The project is part of a £20 million UK-funded programme to improve the sustainable use of natural resources in Sudan, to be carried out by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) over the next three years.

Nairobi, 15 October 2009 - Gareth Thomas, Minister of State at the UK Department of International Development (DFID) will visit Juba today to launch a UNEP project to establish long-term waste management capacity in Southern Sudan.

To kick-start the project, UNEP will organize a clean-up campaign in Juba, in collaboration with Government of Southern Sudan, sister UN Agencies and local organizations.

Taking place on 23 November, Juba Clean-Up will mobilize 16,000 volunteers to tackle the growing health hazard caused by public dumping of waste in the metropolitan area.

With the rapid growth of the city and the absence of a sustainable waste management system, the people of Juba have endured repeated fatal outbreaks of cholera, waterborne diseases and malaria.

The clean-up, which will be replicated in the nine states of Southern Sudan, will be coupled with a sustained awareness-raising campaign to encourage the citizens of Juba to adopt an environmentally friendly attitude towards the disposal of waste in the city.

The initiative forms part of country-wide environmental programme implemented by UNEP to assist the people of Sudan to achieve sustainable peace, recovery and development by improving the management of natural resources.

Speaking from UNEP headquarters in Nairobi, Achim Steiner, Executive Director and UN Under-Secretary-General, said: "UNEP thanks the United Kingdom and DFID Sudan for supporting the environmental agenda there. The Juba clean-up not only marks the beginning of an important project that will have concrete and positive impacts on the population of Southern Sudan - it also takes forward UNEP's collaboration with Sudan to improve environmental management as a critical pre-requisite of sustainable development."

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