Opinion: Africa should not wait for global consensus on plastics

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As uncertainty grows around global plastics treaty negotiations following Norway’s decision — as UNEP’s largest donor — to freeze funding to the environmental body, James Odongo of KEPRO argues that Africa should pursue plastics governance through existing continental and sub-regional systems rather than wait for global consensus. 

• Mr Odongo is the CEO of the Kenya Extended Producer Responsibility Organisation (KEPRO) that brings together key stakeholders to support the management of non-hazardous post-consumer packaging waste in Kenya.

• “Africa has always innovated around the absence of global cooperation. This is no different. The question is whether we act now — or spend the next decade cleaning up decisions made without us,” he says.

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By James Odongo

Norway just went silent. Let me translate what that means, not for Oslo, but for Africa, East Africa, and Kenya.  Last week, Norway (𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙧𝙜𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙐𝙉𝙀𝙋) froze its contributions, days before a critical budget review for the Global Plastics Treaty talks. Most headlines missed it. Africa can't afford to.

The uncomfortable truth:

When a wealthy nation walks away from treaty talks, it doesn't stop producing plastic. It simply exports the pollution logic elsewhere, and "𝙚𝙡𝙨𝙚𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚" is almost always Africa. For the  East African Community’s 300 million people, where up to 92% of the region's plastic waste is already mismanaged, this isn't a diplomatic footnote. It is a direct threat to the regulatory momentum we've been building.

What we now lose:

• A global anchor for harmonised extended producer responsibility (EPR) frameworks across the EAC

• A binding definition of "problematic plastics" — now every country reverts to voluntary guidelines

•  Article 11 finance obligations — the mechanism that would've made rich nations fund the region's waste infrastructure

Without that anchor, we risk many different EPR schemes in the different EAC countries. Fragmentation that some global brands will potentially exploit and that communities will pay for, or could emerge as a new trade barrier.

But here is the strategic pivot:

• The EU is gridlocked.

• Norway just blinked.

• The Global North is fatigued.

What I believe must happen now:

While the treaty is stalled, the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) isn't. We can use EALA to push a Common Market Protocol on Plastic Waste Sovereignty before 2027. To businesses across the EAC: let us stop waiting for a UN stamp of approval. The regulatory wave is coming with or without Oslo's chequebook. Get ahead of it or get disrupted by it.

Kenya has the policy and institutional infrastructure, as well as a plastic bag ban that predates most of the world. UNEP is headquartered in our capital. We don't need to be invited to this conversation. We should be leading it.

Africa has always innovated around the absence of global cooperation. This is no different. The question is whether we act now — or spend the next decade cleaning up decisions made without us.