As partners in their humanitarian commitment, the Veolia Foundation and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are working to improve the NGO's waste management in the areas where it operates, notably in the DRC and neighboring Rwanda. The challenge is global: an improved environmental footprint for vital activities.
While access to water and sanitation have largely fueled the partnership between the Veolia Foundation and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) since 2015, they do not exhaust the field of possible collaborations. Veolia's expertise in waste management is invaluable to the NGO, and a recent mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda illustrates this.
On sites where the NGO operates hospitals, MSF is looking to identify waste management partners. A team consisting of Marine Mudry, Watsan referent at MSF France, and Valérie Gauthier, a Veoliaforce volunteer from the Veolia Foundation's Recyclage et Valorisation des Déchets (RVD) branch in Ile-de-France, spent two weeks in the field*.
They spent a week in Goma (DRC), followed by another week in Kigali (Rwanda), visiting sites and meeting with recyclers from the formal and informal sectors to draw up an overview of the solutions to be adopted. At the same time, a methodology for local MSF logisticians was fine-tuned to help them become more autonomous when auditing waste issues.
What next? MSF will use the overview drawn up at the end of the mission to organize its waste flows and ensure that they are handled in the best possible conditions. The stakes are both health and environmental. Organizing waste treatment is, in particular, a vector control issue (proliferation of pests, rats, flies, mosquitoes, etc.). It also means fighting epidemics and water-borne diseases by protecting local resources. The expected benefits concern both the health and well-being of populations and the environmental footprint.
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*Gérard Kazinguvu (MSF France), Maite Guardiola (MSF Spain) and Philine Moucheront (HULO) were also involved.
Hulo, or the genesis of shared humanitarian logistics
The humanitarian sector is seizing on the subject of waste management via the prism of logistics. Born in June 2021, the Hulo (HUmanitarian LOgistics) cooperative brings together some fifteen humanitarian organizations for their activities in six, mainly African, countries. Among its missions, the organization wants a common purchasing policy and better waste management.
How did you become a Veoliaforce volunteer with the Veolia Foundation?
Valérie Gauthier: I'm not an engineer, I joined Veolia through the QHSE profession, so I had nothing to do with humanitarian emergencies or access to drinking water. In fact, I hesitated for a long time before knocking on the Foundation's door. I thought we only needed water experts. I was wrong! The year after I signed up, I ran my first training course at Bioforce, the industry benchmark for training humanitarian personnel. Then, during the Veoliaforce course in 2023, Médecins Sans Frontières talked about its environmental footprint and a Veoliaforce volunteer recounted his waste management mission in Mauritania. In short, the Veolia foundation isn't just about WASH, it's also about waste! Well, in a manner of speaking!
You spent two weeks in Goma, Bukavu and Kigali. What were the mission's objectives?
VG: The mission was led by Médecins Sans Frontières, with Marine Mudry as referent, to work on the issue of logistical waste in areas where the NGO operates on a sustainable basis. The aim was twofold: to provide MSF logisticians with the tools they need to carry out their own audits, and to identify reliable recycling and waste treatment partners. In concrete terms, we visited a number of waste take-back sites and met with potential recycling players in the DRC and Rwanda, spending a week in each country. What kind of waste are we talking about? Non-medical waste related to MSF's logistics activities, i.e. hazardous waste such as batteries, used oils and WEEE (waste electrical and electronic equipment). During the course of the mission, we also realized that plastics, which were not a priori part of our mission, could usefully be analyzed to provide a panorama of solutions that is as complete as possible and in line with expectations in the field.
Valérie Gauthier, Division Manager at Veolia RVD Ile-de-France, led a mission with Médecins Sans Frontières in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda on waste management. This is a major issue for an NGO whose environmental footprint is one of the key requirements for the coming years.
What surprised you about what you saw in the field?
VG: What I saw in the DRC and Rwanda was an infinite talent for finding solutions, an extraordinary inventiveness and creativity that are not always as widespread in other latitudes. So, of course, we were there to draw the line, both in terms of safety in the workplace and environmental protection, but from the formal economy to the informal sector, it's bubbling over with ideas. And then you have to adapt your approach culturally: we met an entrepreneur who was making kitchen stoves in his backyard, molding concrete slabs, making lighting fixtures from recycled PVC, and had developed an electrical tester. “We want to get by,” he explained. You can't forget this dimension when you talk to them.
How was your expertise used?
VG: It was a real issue for me: being useful, adding value. In talking with the MSF teams, it seemed to me that it was interesting for them to be accompanied when they were confronting their specifications and requirements in the field. When you're used to seeing tons of waste every day, you look at things differently: you're not easily shocked, and you can prioritize in relation to the limits you've set yourself and the other options available locally. I tried to put forward a pragmatic vision, to weigh things up, to calibrate... This sometimes led to the invalidation of intuitions, to the suggestion of other points of view, and even to persuasion. In short, that's what my mission was all about!
Fifteen days after your return, how do you look back on the experience?
VG: At first sight, you'd think that waste management in the humanitarian sector was anything but a priority. But it's not: saving lives doesn't mean you can't be sincere about the environment. This became very clear to me in my discussions with MSF.
As far as I'm concerned, this type of mission is completely in line with our daily professional life: you might think it's not essential, but being there, doing a little more, opens up so many perspectives.
