Assessing the e-waste situation in Africa

Based on experiences gained in the “Global Swiss e-Waste Programme”, a generic e-waste assessment methodology was developed. The methodology is currently applied within the project “e-Waste Management in Africa”, which was launched in 2007 by Hewlett Packard, the Global Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF) and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research (Empa). e-Waste assessment studies were started in Morocco, Kenya and Senegal and South Africa. Based on the standard methodology, the studies map the relevant stakeholders, estimate e-waste stocks and flows through a massflow assessment, analyze the policy landscape, as well as the social, economic and environmental impacts of e-waste in the countries. Besides a coherent discussion of the methodology this paper presents some preliminary results from various African countries.