In Costa Rica, a group of 3 local governments, through a joint project, between Los Chiles, Upala and Guatuso were winners of the #MiMuniSí Contest. The award ceremony was held on June 10th in a virtual event and, thanks to this achievement, these entities became creditors of financing and technical support that will allow them to boost their waste management projects. During the competition, 37 municipalities in the region used the https://girs.ungl.or.cr/ platform to generate comprehensive solid waste management projects.
The contest also included other Central American countries; the winning proposal in Guatemala was the Municipality of San Andrés; in Honduras, the Municipality of Tela. In total, 37 municipalities from these 3 countries participated in the activity.
The First Central American Munithon#MiMuniSí was held from April 7th to June 10th of the current year. It was a process for the empowerment of the teams of the participating municipalities, which took advantage of the tools of the new integrated solid waste management platform, to create projects that will improve their capacities in waste management.
Of transcendental importance
For Karen Porras, executive director of the UNGL, the Munithon has been of transcendental importance for local governments, given its impact on one of the most sensitive and strategic areas of municipal management: proper waste management. “Progress and contributions in terms of sustainability that are related to the generation of internal capacities, as well as technical advice and support in complex processes that link civil society, make a substantial difference in the performance of local governments and, from then, in the well-being perceived by the users of municipal services”.
In Costa Rica, the joint project between the Municipality of Los Chiles, the Municipality of Upala and the Municipality of Guatuso, proposed the construction of a Technological Center for Integral Management of Solid Waste for the North-North Territory, the initiative proposes to launch a center that allows the transfer, collection, separation, valorization and environmental education of the community with the purpose of increasing the collection coverage in the 3 cantons by up to 100% by the year 2050.
Joint effort
The initiative was organized by the National Union of Local Governments (UNGL) with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Association of Municipalities of Honduras (AMHON), the National Association of Municipalities of the Republic of Guatemala (ANAM) , the German Cooperation for Development GIZ, the Grupo Vidriero Centroamericano VICAL and the Costa Rica – United States Foundation for Cooperation (CRUSA). The Munithon was developed in the context of the project “Improvement of Municipal Solid Waste Management”, which began in 2017.
This arose from an agreement between the IDB, the financing entity, and the UNGL, in which technical cooperation for the management of urban solid waste was encouraged in 3 municipalities of Costa Rica (El Guarco, Jiménez and Cartago), Guatemala (SantaCruz Naranjo). , Villa Nueva and Antigua) and Honduras (Tela, Villanueva and Trujillo).
