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CircularJourney

East Africa — 2028

Rwanda

Rwanda restricted single-use plastic bags earlier and more strictly than most countries, at a much lower income level than the countries usually studied for it. That combination is the reason to go.
Future missionUnder consideration for a later phase of the programme.

Research question

What does it take to enforce a material restriction without a large enforcement budget?

Written before the mission, and published unchanged. Findings are assessed against this question rather than the question being rewritten to fit the findings.

Research scope

Enforcement without wealth

What we want to understand

  1. 01How the restriction is enforced at borders, in markets and in retail.
  2. 02What replaced the restricted material, and what that substitution cost.
  3. 03How the policy interacts with organised community participation.
  4. 04What the unintended consequences have been, including informal supply.
  5. 05Which elements depend on the specific scale and governance of the country.
Region
East Africa
Research lens
03 · Emerging and local innovationsIs there a specific innovation here that could matter elsewhere?
Research theme
Plastic restriction, civic participation and state capacity
Field research
Planned for 2028
Framework themes
policyplasticcitizen behavioureconomicsscalabilityindia applicability
Relevant SDGs
SDG 11SDG 12SDG 15

Cities

Rwanda

Kigali

Plastic restriction and organised community participation, enforced consistently at a low income level.

Future mission

Missions

No mission scheduled

This country is on the roadmap but no mission has been planned in detail yet.

Findings

No findings yet

Field research in Rwanda is future mission. This section stays empty until there is something we have actually seen. The questions above are what we will be asking.

What India could take from Rwanda

Assessment pending

Any judgement about transfer to India would be speculation until the system has been seen working, and its costs and dependencies understood. Anything published here will be labelled as a proposal until a pilot reports.

What Rwanda could take from India

Nothing has been researched yet, so nothing is claimed. These are the parts of India’s experience we expect to be worth putting in front of practitioners here, and what we will ask them about.

  • Enforcement of plastic rules across very large and diverse urban populations.
  • Community participation models tested across many different city conditions.

Read the reasoning on why this is a two-way journey.

Case studies

KigaliPlanned

Enforced restriction of single-use plastic bags, Rwanda

A national restriction on single-use plastic bags, introduced early and enforced consistently, at an income level well below the countries usually cited for plastic policy.

plastic

Film and clips

Nothing filmed yet

Filming follows the field visit. Clip subjects are planned in advance and listed on the clips page.

Notices

Organizations and experts

Directory not yet open

We list an organization only once it has agreed to a public listing, and a person only with their consent. Outreach for this mission is under way; entries appear here as permissions come back.Take part