WASTE & RESOURCE MANAGEMENT RESEARCH GROUP (WARMREG),

UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA

The Waste & Resource Management Research Group (WARMREG) is based in the Department of Geography, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.  It is anchored on the conviction that since the turn of the 21^st century, the world’s resources have been facing depletion at a very rapid rate resulting from increasing worldwide demand for and use of non-renewable resources. Thus, human beings are left with no option than to identify and exploit opportunities previously unexplored in waste and resource management.

The WARMREG advocates inclusive waste management i.e an approach to waste management recognizing and involving informal waste workers such as waste pickers, scrap dealers and cart pushers while complementing the activities of the informal waste management system and the formal waste management system in a mutually beneficial relationship. The argument for inclusive development is justified for moral, legal, economic, social, security and environmental reasons. Hence, current international development thinking regarding waste and resource management has drawn attention to the links between inclusive waste management and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We argue that inclusion per sé is central to the SDGs, and that an inclusive MSWM policy in Nigeria is desirable as it maps onto the SDGs which aim to improve lives in the post-2015 development era.

The WARMREG will seek to engage and facilitate dialogue between researchers, policy makers and practitioners concerning contemporary issues in waste and resource management.

The objectives of WARMREG are:

• to provide broad and critical engagements with key debates in the environmental social sciences, focusing on waste and resource management
• to foster an understanding of environmental policy relating to waste and resource management
• to  provide a platform for advocacy and policy engagement on behalf of the informal waste sector for inclusive development
• to coordinate research and publications in waste and resource management for the Department
• to contribute to solutions to waste and resource management problems through innovative public policy making

The focus of WARMREG will include (but not limited to) the following areas:

• The role of civil society, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and Community-based organizations (CBOs) in waste and resource management and public policy
• Media and advocacy in waste and resource management
• Politics of waste and resource management and resource governance
• Political economy , cultural and social sustainability of environmental resources management
• Political ecologies (urban, feminist) of waste and resource management conflict, environmental justice issues and their policy dimensions.
• Livelihood issues and improvements in social conditions of labour in the informal waste economy
• Exploration of linkages of the informal waste economy with the SDGs.