Date:14 April 2016
The Heads of State and Government and High Level Representatives of 193 Member States of the United Nations adopted the post-2015 development agenda – Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at its core, at the UN Sustainable Development Summit held in New York from 25 to 27 September 2015. The Agenda which represents a plan of action for people, planet, prosperity, and peace reflects the commitment of the countries to shift the world on to a sustainable and resilient path. Through adoption of the Agenda, the member states called for, among others, a revitalized Global Partnership for Sustainable Development, based on a spirit of strengthened global solidarity, focused in particular on the needs of poorest and most vulnerable and with the participation of all countries, all stakeholders and all people.
SDG 17 - "Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development" - recognizes multi-stakeholder partnerships as important vehicles for mobilizing and sharing knowledge, expertise, technologies and financial resources to support the achievement of the sustainable development goals in all countries, particularly developing countries, and calls for effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experiences and resourcing strategies of partnerships.
The International Partnership for Expanding Waste Management Services of Local Authorities (IPLA), one of the SDG partnerships, aims to enable local authorities (LAs) to expand their waste management services by accelerating the uptake of waste-related infrastructure and services at various stages of waste management through meaningful collaboration with a wide range of partners such as governments, business and financial sector, and civil society. The final goal of IPLA is to help LAs move towards resource efficient and zero waste societies.
IPLA serves as a "dynamic knowledge platform" and a "decentralized network" among a wide range of partners such as cities and municipalities, governments, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), academic and research institutions, international and donor organizations, UN agencies, among others, to address waste management issues, including new emerging issues, at local/municipality level.