Regional Focal Points
The primary purpose of the StEP Regional Focal Point (RFP) is to act as a source of information to the StEP Management Board and members on relevant e-waste efforts, activities and news in their respective region. Together with the Supervisory Committee and the Management Board, the RFP play a key role in providing StEP members with useful information and offering recommendations or suggestions for future discussion issues or events that can benefit StEP members and/or show a benefit from StEP involvement.
Meet the Regional Focal Points
Latin America
Master in Environmental Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Zurich (ETH), Switzerland. He has 12 years of experience as a consultant in waste management, extended producer responsibility and reverse logistics systems. From 2007 to 2012 he gained expertise in International Cooperation through the coordination of the project "Management of WEEE in Latin America" at the Federal Institute of Materials and Technologies (Empa, Switzerland). Since 2013, he is the Manager for Latin America of Reverse Logistics Group (RLG), who offers solutions and services in the areas of collection and recycling, and environmental legal compliance, thus facilitating the implementation of circular economy models. He lives in MedellÃn, Colombia, and speaks German, Spanish, English and French.
Uca Silva is founder and in charge of the Plataforma RELAC (http://www.residuoselectronicos.net/) . She is an academic researcher and consultant and a specialist in the management of waste electrical and electronic equipment. Further Uca Silva has international experience in planning, developing and implementing projects with the ability to engage stakeholders from several sectors and countries.
Middle East and Northern Africa
Hossam is the Head of ICT for Development Unit at the Centre for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe (CEDARE). CEDARE is an international organization based in Cairo, Egypt. He has a Ph.D degree in Computing from the University of Plymouth, UK, and MSc degree in Computer and Information Science from the University of New Haven, USA. He has a BSc degree in computer and automatic control engineering from Ain Shams University, Egypt. He has more than 14 years of international experience in promoting the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for sustainable development. He is currently engaged in the promotion of applying safe and economical e-waste management systems for the end-of-life ICT equipments in the North Africa and Middle East countries.
Asia
Obtained his PhD at the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1997. His chief research areas are diverse and include the recycling and disposal technology of e-waste and hazardous waste, the policy and management on solid waste with an emphasis on e-waste and hazardous waste, the disposal and treatment engineering of hazardous waste, soil pollution remediation and environmental risk assessment. Since 1997 Dr Li has worked as a post-doctoral researcher and associate professor at the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University.
Currently he serves as executive secretary of the Basel Convention Coordinating Centre for Asia and the Pacific – one of the 14 regional centres under the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal and one of the 8 regional centres under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. He also acts as deputy director and head of expert board, Solid Waste Branch of Chinese Society of Environmental Sciences, as a member of Subsidiary Expert of Asia 3R Forum, and as a member of PCBs Elimination Network (PEN) Advisory Committee of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. Dr Li leads the implementation of 60 projects, of which 12 are full e-waste projects.
Dr Li has published 86 full papers appearing in international conference and academic journals, of which 43 contribute to the e-waste topic. Additionally Dr Li has been an invited speaker at numerous international conferences and also organizes international, regional and national conferences and workshops.
South Pacific
Dr. Sunil Herat is a Senior Lecturer in Waste Management at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. His research interests include solid waste management in developing countries, implementing cleaner production practices and how different countries deal with the problem e-waste.
He has a special interest in capacity building activities related to e-waste in Asia Pacific region. He has a sound knowledge of the issues confronting Australia with respect to the e-waste problem. Dr Herat has published number of research papers in international peer-reviewed journal on various aspects related to E-waste.
He has also presented in number of international conferences and appeared in number of media interviews. Dr Herat is a current member of the StEP taskforce on capacity building.