Enhancing chemicals management in the apparel and footwear sector of Myanmar

Myanmar's textile and apparel sector is rapidly establishing itself as a producer and supplier of apparel on the international market. This role goes hand-in-hand with the requirement and challenge of meeting the expectations of national legislation and international customers with regard to sustainable production methods and environmental standards. In this respect, the sector's efforts are at an initial stage. Access to relevant local advisory and training services were still limited. As part of the SMART Myanmar project, sequa and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) have worked with local partners to improve conformance to environmental standards and international practices in the Myanmar garment and footwear industry.

In this context adelphi supported these efforts to strengthen the consulting and training capacities of local service providers in the area of chemicals management. As part of a staggered approach, the participating local trainers and consultants acquainted themselves with concepts and implementation methods in the environment and chemicals management and received on-site guidance in the practical implementation at the factor level from the adelphi experts. As part of this initiatives, five selected local supplier factories in the textile, apparel and footwear sectors received support in enhancing their environment and chemicals management practices. In addition, the adelphi team also supported the local partners in SMART Myanmar in developing a training programme on environmental and chemicals management for micro and small enterprises. This programme was subsequently applied in various small business clusters and thus contributed to improving good practices in this segment of the textile and clothing sector in line with national and international standards.