The attractiveness of cities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will be enhanced. This is the wish of President Félix Tshisékedi, whose first term of office ends in December 2023. At the Council of Ministers meeting he chaired last October, the candidate for re-election instructed the government to implement a policy to promote the circular economy in urban areas, starting with Kinshasa.
The 24 councils of the Congolese capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo “suffer from the degrading and unacceptable spectacle of waste littering the streets, gutters and waterways”, he said, suggesting that this situation of notorious insalubrity “constitutes both a governance challenge and an economic opportunity”. This mission, has been entrusted directly to the Ministry of Industry in this Central African country.
“Initially, the aim will be to take stock of the entire industrial sector involved in recycling plastic waste, in order to develop a model that can be replicated in other towns in the country”, reports the DRC Presidency. The 17 million inhabitants of Kinshasa generate 3 million tonnes of plastic waste a year, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
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Félix Tshisékedi’s recommendations are in line with the 6th and 12th Sustainable Development Goals (SDG6 and 12), which focus on sanitation and responsible production and consumption, respectively. They should also lead to the creation of local jobs for unemployed young people through the promotion of activities “linked to the collection and treatment of waste”. A number of start-ups, notably OK Plast and Plastycor, have just launched in this sector, which is not as attractive as the mining sector (copper, cobalt, gold, diamonds) to which the DRC owes its wealth.
Benoit-Ivan Wansi