Waste is often neglected in humanitarian response, with negative impacts on human health and the environment. Whilst UN agencies
have committed to Greening the Blue and The Grand Bargain, through for example local humanitarian procurement, the link between these organisational commitments and humanitarian operations is often lacking, without the mechanisms in place to support it. Further, as waste management is not subsidised in most of the displacement settings where IOM works, even if organisations procure repairable/recyclable products, the lack of (affordable) waste management services present a significant challenge to “closing the loop.” Secondly, displaced populations know that waste has a value, and wont necessarily hand in products for repair/recycling voluntarily if they can keep and on-sell it later. This presents a behaviour change challenge whereby individuals require incentivisation for improved waste management practices.

The project “closing the loop”, led by IOM, in partnership with Solvoz, Empower, Plastic Odyssey, and supported by the HUMLOG Institute, seeks to integrate local waste management services into a new market ecosystem to address the disproportionate burden of humanitarian waste management, piloting in two target locations.

The project pilots using a new ecosystem of funding flow within humanitarian response that effectively subsidies waste management
not currently available in displacement settings. This “closes the loop” between procurement, humanitarian operations and localisation of waste management by merging the in-kind distribution of products with service provision, utilising the current CBI delivery modality for a new purpose, and transforming the current concept of sustainable procurement. In addition, it strengthens local business models and enables local entrepreneurs to work within the humanitarian system.

In thisworkshop we invite experts to discuss i) The factors (drivers and barriers) relevant to local
service engagement in sustained humanitarian crises? ii) The impact that such
factors have on the growth of the service market, and iii) The mechanisms for
humanitarian actors to engage new service markets.