Prevention of Marine Litter in the Lakshadweep Sea (PROMISE) is a 4-year project (2020-2024) supported by the European Union (EU) under the SWITCH Asia Programme. In recent years, the project partner countries, Maldives, Sri Lanka and India have undergone substantial growth in tourism clusters located along their shorelines of the Lakshadweep Sea. This led to economic well-being of the local population. However, due to high consumption rates of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and single-use plastic packaging, tourism industries have also been identified as major contributors to marine litter. In many touristic regions of the global south, this is aggravated by the absence of effective policy frameworks, a lack of consumer awareness and insufficient capacities of local authorities to handle the increasing solid waste.

A series of policy roundtables were organised with an aim to prototype policy solution mechanisms for challenges in prevention of marine litter. Three policy roundtables were organised, each focusing on Defining challenges (1st), Solution prototyping (2nd), and Public showcasing of policy mechanisms (3rd). Every roundtable will feed-in inputs to the next one to prototype potential policy solutions that can help national policy makers in furthering marine litter prevention policies.