Type
Workshop
KSA Waste Statistics Master Class
Location
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Date
-
Duration
3 Days
Thematic Area
E-waste management,
Other
Website
Price
$0.00
Event Focal Point Email
maximilian.schubert@unitar.org
Contact Number
+491624206727
Registration
Invitation-only event
Mode of Delivery
Face-to-Face
Language(s)
English
Pillar
Planet
Partnership
UNEP (4828)
Event Objectives
The workshop aims to strengthen national and institutional capacity in waste statistics, material flow analysis, and data-driven planning for regulation and policy development in Saudi Arabia. It seeks to establish a shared methodological basis across the institutions that produce, regulate and use waste data, and to improve coordination between them. Using e-waste, plastics and batteries as practical cases, it demonstrates the UNITAR toolkits and tests them against the Kingdom's own starting position. The workshop further aims to identify gaps in national waste data systems and to define concrete next steps for each priority waste stream, so that the methods introduced are carried into routine national practice.
Background
Waste volumes are rising worldwide while the data needed to manage them stays thin. Without reliable statistics, governments cannot see where waste arises, set credible targets, or judge whether policy is working. Saudi Arabia is transforming its waste sector under circular economy principles, including diverting up to 90 per cent of waste from landfill by 2040, and those commitments rest on measurement. The course strengthens the capacity of national institutions to produce and use waste statistics. By the end, participants can apply material flow analysis to build inventories for e-waste, plastics and batteries, construct circularity indicators, and use the results to inform regulation, compliance monitoring and investment planning.
Content and Structure
The course builds national waste inventory capacity across 10 sessions:
- S1: Welcome and global trends
- S2: Principles of waste statistics
- S3: From raw data to an inventory
- S4: Real world impact
- S5: Estimating waste generation
- S6: Plastics methodology
- S7: The plastics toolkit
- S8: Leveraging waste data
- S9: Applied plastics session and group work
- S10: Closing
Methodology
The workshop was delivered in person over three days, pairing short theory inputs with immediate hands-on application. Each methodological block was followed by a computer-based exercise in which participants ran the UNITAR toolkits on their own laptops, using trade, production and installed capacity data. Anonymous recap quizzes opened each day and showed where concepts had not landed. Practical insight came from working with imperfect data: missing production statistics, units reported as counts, and parameters that had to be assumed and documented. Facilitated group work by waste stream, on a shared online board, translated the methods into national next steps.
Targeted Audience
Participants came from the national institutions that produce, regulate and use waste and environmental statistics: the National Center for Waste Management (MWAN), the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT), the Ministry of Municipalities and Housing, and the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture. The training addressed data producers and data users alike, combining technical staff with policy officers and decision-makers.
Additional Information
NA
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