From 21st until 24th of June Tiina and Birjo were representing and introducing Let's do it! movement and World Cleanup 2012 in Bangkok - during Asia and Pacific Urban forum. There were more than 600 participants from the region, from many NGO-s, local governments and other organizations.
In their words it was truly eye-opening experience regarding the key issues in the region
and present situation in waste management sphere.
It seems that in these regions several issues which we are globally facing
today - overpopulation, the gaps in incomes and living environments,
urbanisation etc are expecially drastic and need new solutions and approaches.
One of those areas that needs vast improvement is waste- or shall we say -
resource management. The differences in different areas and cities are
huge - it seems there are new models and systems being tried out and tested
simultaneously in many different places. The local
governments seem to be keen in trying out new ways on how to solve those
problems involving the local
people very much in the process. So Let's Do It! action model, empowering local people and communities to take active role in solving big issues, got very strong and positive response from many of the participants.
Tiina and Birjo had long talks with different forum participants and got many promising contacts - one of them is a network of municipalities -
UCLG-ASPAC, which connects more than 7000 bigger and smaller members in Asia
Pacific, uniting more than 3 billion people. But also many interested
representatives from cities and municipalities all over Asia – from Philippines, Nepal, Malaysia,
Pakistan, Vietnam, South-Korea, Thailand, Austria. There was also a good contact with Citynet
representatives and International Solid Waste Management people who seemed interested in further
cooperation with us.
You can request a more detailed report on the event by writing to liine@letsdoitworld.org
Cityscapes blog was covering the Forum and also made a post on World Cleanup 2012.