The world has witnessed a drastic increase in chemicals production and use: the industry has grown from US$171 billion in 1970 to over US$4.1 trillion today. While chemicals have played a key role in agriculture, medicines, textiles and almost every aspect of modern industries, they also pose potentially great threats to healthy ecosystem and human health, particularly in low to middle income countries, mainly due to the lack of waste management infrastructure and awareness.

The GEF Small Grants Programme (SGP), implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), has been piloting innovative community-based projects to facilitate chemicals and waste management in line with the GEF Strategic Programming. As of today, the SGP has supported a total of 565 chemical and waste management projects in 103 countries.

This publication highlights 10 projects SGP projects—including a case study from Nepal—that showcase successful implementation of innovative community-based solutions in addressing chemicals and waste problems. Communities empowered with knowledge, funding and technical support can identify and implement effective local activities to avoid, reduce and phase out the use of harmful substances and manage the resource flow to waste in a circular system.

A PDF version of the document can be downloaded from the link on the top right corner of this page