LAAV has been successful in gaining Japan International Corporation Association (JICA) through its J-PRISIM project support and funding for a 2 days’ workshop aimed at strengthening the capacity of Provincial Government Councils (PGC’s) to implement each provincial Solid Waste Management Plan (SWM) in each 6 provinces.

The overall objective of the 2 days’ workshop is ‘to help the LGA’S to identify SWM issue faced by the Provinces and Introduce the current SWM activities available around the Municipalities and to develop a template for preparing a SWM plan at the Provincial Level’.

Now that all the provinces have actively participated in identifying each respective SWM issues, and with the current SWM activities around the urban centres, each of the 6 provinces now has the capacity to develop its own Solis Waste Management Plan which should then be approved by the Department of Environment before 2016.

The Annual Solid Waste Management Plan will then be introduced in 2016 followed by the conceptual plan (long term plan) by 2020. The small size of provincial councils and their limited resources mean they require specialist assistance to implement new control sites through this new SWM focused initiative;the 6 provinces have identified 12 potential sites for Control disposal sites, while 4 others have been identified for Semi Aerobic Landfill sites.

Source: LAAV Headquarters, Port Vila, Vanuatu