Myanmar: Environmental Goods and Services (EGS) – Circular Economy Expert (International)

Oct 31, 2021 | UNDP
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The United Nations Development Programme is a United Nations organization tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development.

Background

An estimated $10 trillion of business opportunities can be unlocked globally by transforming business-as-usual growth pathways that are responsible for almost 80% of nature loss, according to a recent World Economic Forum report. Thereby, investing in green business as a COVID-19 economic response strategy makes economic sense and must be pursued actively. A well-functioning business environment underpins green business development, and this includes new levels of resources, capacity and governance to enable businesses to respond more effectively, inclusively, and innovatively as this pandemic ensues. For Myanmar, there is both a need and opportunity to overcome fundamental market-creating challenges through integrating sustainability as a long-term strategy into business models and stimulating a new wave of business opportunities guided with a vision of low carbon, green economy, aligned with the UNDP Strategic Plan, 2022–2025, and the Country First Programme’s (2021-2023) Private Partnership Sector Project of the Myanmar Country Office.

To this end, the Environmental Goods and Services (EGS) component of the Governance for Resilience and Sustainability Project (GRSP), UNDP, since 2020 has been working towards fostering a more conducive business environment for green business using evidence-based research and policy. Technical Assistance (TAs) are currently being developed in five key industry sectors to support businesses and communities directly namely Energy, Garment, Hotel and Tourism, Agri-food, and private financial institutions. Each TA comprises a menu of activities aimed to build on UNDP’s initiatives to develop the private sector by addressing market-creating challenges of EGS and green business as well as emerging compounding risks associated with the coup and pandemic. Through the TAs, GRSP’s EGS component will be appraising a string of market-creating policies such as green procurement, waste-as-resource and circular economy integration, and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) mainstreaming— thereby, contributing to laying the groundwork for institutionalizing EGS as a long-term strategy. The enhanced support in Myanmar will help ensure that early private sector movers and communities are better equipped in their role as provider and user of EGS.

About the Technical Assistance on Garment

Myanmar’s garment industry had been growing at an impressive pace over the past decade following economic reforms undertaken since 2011. From 2012 to 2018, the value of exports increased fivefold, from US$900 million to US$4.6 billion according to official Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association data. Between these years, there were more than 500 factories that provided jobs to more than half a million workers, many of them young women, according to the same sources. Pre-pandemic, the industry was seeing more growth than any other sector, on track to creating up to 1.5 million jobs by 2020 and bringing economic expansion in global markets.

Globally, the textile sector alone is responsible for 6% of GHG emissions and 10%–20% of the global pollution from pesticide use; one-fifth of industrial water pollution is generated from washing, solvents, and dyes used in manufacturing textiles; and about 20%–35% of microplastics used by the industry, flows into the ocean according to a McKinsey Report (2019). At the local level, unsustainable practices in the garment industry present economic and health challenges to communities. One such example is Hlaing Thar Yar (HTY) township, Yangon’s garment hub with a major export-oriented industrial base.

In 2020, HTY was home to more than 150 garment factories, many of which are exportoriented, either foreign owned or joint venture. Waste from garment factories is contributing the clogging of age-old drainages, further contributing to the worsening flooding situation in HTY. Frequent flooding in the township has routinely caused significant loss of property, income, and livelihood, and this has sometimes led to many poor residents being displaced and cut off temporarily from economic and vital services. Notwithstanding this, the pandemic and political turmoil had further depressed economic activity and deteriorated social conditions, driving many factories to close, and many to unemployment and on poverty line, or abandon their homes altogether. According to EuroCham Myanmar’s preliminary survey, about a quarter of workers had already lost their jobs with garment factories closing permanently or temporarily due to concerns of safety in some Yangon townships.

More than one-third of Yangon’s approximately 370,000 informal settlers live in HTY , rendering them disproportionately vulnerable to the effects of waste induced flooding and slower to rebound as conflict and pandemic continue to cause instability in the country. Without business-oriented solutions, innovative responses, and improved human capital in this township, economic losses from waste-induced flooding can make the process of urban poverty reduction and sustainable development more difficult to achieve.

Value addition of GRSP support

The added value of the TA on Garment in HTY is in enabling circular economy solutions to reduce waste-induced flooding, thereby improving the well-being of communities that are most affected by it, particularly the poor and informal settlers, and ensuring it is inclusive post crises recovery. The TA aims to strengthen the capacities of local garment entities directly and harness the ingenuity of communities’ response to waste-induced flooding by engaging them to co-create solutions and achieve flood prevention together with other economic benefits.

Treating waste as resource (i.e., resource recovery, product life extension, circular supplies) effectively diverts recyclable material from being dumped in drainages and open spaces unnecessarily or at waste disposal facilities, thereby reducing waste induced flooding. Wasteas-resources solutions in HTY’s context rest on the principle that waste management should combine the local productive capacity and innovation capabilities of garment industries and nurture the business ecosystem around them (potential of local enterprises and communities to produce an Environmentally Preferable Product and Services from garment waste stream). The participation and inclusion of communities are essential in any effort to improve industrial waste management in HTY. By soliciting solutions from communities directly through innovation challenge, the TA will facilitate the creation of products from waste that are relevant and responsive to challenges that are facing them daily (e.g., improved housing conditions through eco-lumber use).

Overall, this TA helps to achieve the UNDP Strategic Plan, 2022-2025 which aims to help 100 million people escape multidimensional poverty and the Private Partnership Sector Project which will support the private sector in Myanmar to engage in responsible business conduct and practices and promote private sector investment in sustainable development.

The project requires the engagement of a Circular Economy expert to provide technical guidance for the application of circular economy strategies in the garment industry in HTY, including preparation of an assessment of circular economy and delivering high-level and deep dive workshops targeting garment industry firms directly.

For the full details about the position, responsibilities, and requirements, please review the Terms of Reference at this link.