From transport to health, food to construction and textiles, plastics are among the most abundant materials in our economy. Globally, the plastic industry is valued at USD 600 billion and provides employment to millions of people worldwide. But plastic pollution has become a crisis of monumental proportions, with 8 million tons ending up in oceans annually. Around the world, different regions face unique challenges ranging from community awareness to waste and recycling capacity, to weak stakeholder engagement.

The World Bank Group (WBG) aims to integrate Citizen Engagement (CE) systematically into its operations, particularly emphasizing inclusion and empowerment of citizen participation. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its impact on traditional CE mechanisms, prompted a strategic shift towards leveraging digital tools for transparent, inclusive, and accessible CE.

Building on previous knowledge-exchange initiatives at the World Bank, this platform aimed to: (i) consolidate operational knowledge on participatory local development and service delivery in Fragile, Conflict and Violence (FCV) contexts in the region; (ii) support the sharing of this knowledge between neighboring countries with varying experience on the topic and (iii) facilitate the harmonization of approaches and strengthen the quality of Community and Local Development  (CLD) implementation on aspects such as climate adaptation, social cohesion, citizen engageme

Building upon a knowledge exchange that took place from 2017 to 2018, this knowledge exchange – with an extended scope and regional participation – had as objective to (a) deepen learning and the ties forged between Guinea and Cameroon CDD project teams, while extending the knowledge network to Burundi and across linguistic boundaries to Nigeria ; (b) enhance the understanding of participating countries on effective and sustainable participatory development models and processes which can be incorporated in their on-going project operations and policy action; (c) strengthen

A delegation of senior officials from the Government of Guinea participated in learning and knowledge activities in Rwanda, focusing on productive safety net systems. The Government of Guinea is committed to investing in safety nets as a key instrument for reducing poverty, protecting vulnerable populations from shocks and promoting resilience.

The Governments of Cameroon, Guinea and Senegal (“the Governments”) have been pursuing a strategy of decentralization in tackling challenges of poverty, weak institutional capacity, and fragility. While these Governments have been considerably successful in supporting bottom-up local development in ongoing World Bank-funded projects, they have encountered certain technical difficulties scaling up their projects to mainstream participatory approaches into the government structures.