Improving and protecting the living environment and public health are generally proclaimed as central to development policies in all African countries. However, it is clear that limitation of resources as well as the lack of political will often leads public authorities to relegate these issues as of least priority. In order to meet such challenges, it is necessary to use a combination of government action, public society and the private sector.

My recent duties as Ambassador to the United States of America and the Bretton Woods Institutions and Director of Human Rights at the Ministry of Justice allowed me to understand more clearly the challenges of socio-economic development faced by African countries in general and Benin in particular.

The problem of waste management and recovery still remains unresolved and negatively affects the living environment and therefore actions aimed at the promotion of human rights, the protection of the environment and sanitation. It is therefore necessary and urgent to concentrate more energy, material and financial resources, but also to finally adopt an innovative and effective strategy adaptable to local realities.

“Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed” (Antoine Lavoisier, 1743-1794). The ReBin Foundation, through the concept of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Your Garbage Can”, seems to me to be proposing innovative approaches that are perfectly suited to such a strategy in that they are designed to find sustainable and economically viable solutions.

I now hope to devote some my time and energy to improving the living and working environment of the people at base. I would like to make my humble contribution to the experimentation of this new model of development cooperation advocated by ReBin as well as to its progressive popularization in Benin and Africa.