The global production of plastics has increased from 1.5 million tons in 1950s to about 300 million tons currently, at an average rate of 4 per cent per annum and is expected to continue growing (Boucher and Friot 2017). About 50 per cent of the plastics produced is for single use, and the literature estimates that 8 million tons (2.5 per cent) of the plastic produced are leaked into the oceans annually (PlasticsEurope 2016).

This report illustrates how policy makers, government staff and development practitioners can start putting in place what the former UN Secretary General called: “a practical twenty-first century development model that connects the dots among the key issues of our time: poverty reduction; job generation; inequality; climate change; environmental stress; water energy and food security.”Livelihoods, poverty reduction efforts and economic growth in Africa are highly dependent on the quality and availability of natural resources, and are thus extremely vulnerable to degradation of those resources and to climate change. Development efforts hence need to equally embrace economic, social and environmental sustainability as emphasized in the recently adopted ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ as well as ‘Agenda 2063 – The Africa We Want’.