National Solid Waste Management Strategy- This plan is prepared by the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) on the recognition of the urgent need to improve solid waste management in the country. It provides the framework for future directions, regulations, funding and action plans to improve solid waste management in order to achieve consistency and coordination. The vision of the strategy is for Namibia to become the leading country in Africa in terms of standards of solid waste management by 2028 while the objectives include to strengthen the institutional, organizational and legal framework for solid waste management, including capacity development, install a widespread culture of waste minimization and to expand recycling systems, implement formalized solid waste collection and management systems in all populated areas, including under the administration of Regional Councils, enforce improvements in municipal waste disposal standards, and plan and implement feasible options for hazardous waste management. The targets are to be measured in specific time-bound milestones and some targets will relate to key performance indicators that are tracked over time. The strategy covers only solid wastes from domestic, industrial, commercial, healthcare, construction wastes, etc, and excludes liquid wastes, sludge from wastewater and radioactive. The solid waste management is to be carried out in line with the principles of the Waste Hierarchy, where waste minimization and recycling is preferred to waste treatment and disposal, however, the longer term planning will integrate the Circular Economy as an alternative to the Waste Hierarchy System. The Circular Economy ensures that resources are kept in use for as long as possible, extracting the maximum value from them while in use. The plan recognizes that solid waste management is an expensive activity and provides for innovative approaches to raise revenues and manage funding. The strategy is divided into time-bound phases; phase 1 is for the implementation framework (2017-2019), phase 2 is for the implementation of the core components (2018-2022), phase 3 involves the development of major infrastructure (2020-2023) and the final phase is devoted to updating the strategy (2023).

Policy