COP31: SONAGED brings together the West African Alliance on Carbon Markets and BOAD on financing waste management through Article 6

On the sidelines of COP31 in Antalya (Türkiye), Senegal’s National Integrated Waste Management Company (SONAGED) held a high-level panel on a specific question: how can the cooperation mechanisms of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement finance solid waste management and the circular economy in Africa? The West African Alliance on Carbon Markets and Climate Finance (WAA) and the West African Development Bank (BOAD) brought two complementary perspectives to the discussion. One focused on national frameworks and cooperation between countries. The other focused on the conditions for financing.

With this theme, SONAGED put at the centre of the discussion a sector that is often missing from the major debates on carbon markets. As a public operator, it knows the practical constraints of collecting and treating waste and managing disposal sites, and it wanted to test that experience against the tools of climate finance.

In many African cities, a large share of waste still ends up in uncontrolled dumpsites. These sites emit methane, a greenhouse gas with a far greater warming potential than CO₂ in the short term. They also contaminate soil and groundwater and expose nearby communities to lasting health risks.

Yet waste management delivers emission reductions quickly, and those reductions can be measured. Biogas capture, composting of organic waste and recycling of materials all cut emissions while creating value: energy, inputs for agriculture, and secondary raw materials for industry. These value chains also create jobs, especially for young people and women, who already make up much of the workforce in collection and sorting.

This twofold benefit, for the climate and the economy, makes the circular economy a natural fit for Article 6 mechanisms. What is still missing is the financing needed to turn isolated initiatives into structured value chains.

Article 6 allows Parties to cooperate voluntarily to meet their climate targets, in particular through the international transfer of mitigation outcomes and through carbon crediting mechanisms. For a host country, these transfers have consequences. Every reduction transferred abroad must be rigorously accounted for against the country’s own Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), through a corresponding adjustment.

Mr Ousmane Fall SARR, Coordinator of the WAA, described the work the Alliance has carried out with West African countries over the past ten years. The goal is to enable them to approach these markets as actors who set their own rules, rather than as mere suppliers of credits. This requires national authorisation frameworks, reliable registries, transparent procedures and constant attention to environmental integrity.

For the waste sector, this means that every carbon project must contribute to NDC targets and national development strategies while delivering verifiable benefits to communities.

Mr Moubarak MOUKAILA, Director of Sustainable Finance at BOAD, spoke from the perspective of a regional development finance institution. For a bank, everything comes down to project quality: are projects credible and bankable, and can they deliver measurable impact?

A waste management project that targets carbon markets must first prove that it is technically sound. It needs a well-managed collection, sorting and treatment chain and a reliable system for measuring, reporting and verifying (MRV) avoided emissions. Second, it must rest on a viable business model that does not depend on carbon revenue alone. Finally, it must guarantee decent jobs, include informal-sector actors and protect the health of nearby communities.

Projects that fall short of these requirements struggle to raise funds and remain stuck at the pilot stage.

The panel brought together three links in the chain that rarely sit at the same table: the operator that manages waste, the regional alliance that supports countries in implementing Article 6, and the bank that finances investment. Their exchange showed that solid waste can become a priority mitigation sector in West Africa if three conditions are met: strong national frameworks, bankable projects, and an inclusive approach that involves local actors, including the informal sector.

The next step is to move from pilot projects to national waste management systems that are financed over the long term and open to local actors. The Alliance will continue this work with its member countries and its technical and financial partners.