LocationsRethinking Networks, Accelerating Learning: A Cross-Sectoral Experiment in Circularity and Informal Economies
November 13, 2024
Raeli Athuman Zuberi weighing plastic debris she collected from illegal dumps in Tanga, Tanzania.
Across our Network of Labs in countries such as Ethiopia, Ghana, Zambia, Cameroon, Libya or Haiti, we are seeing a pattern emerge from the bottom-up: informal waste-pickers, often youth and women, are at the forefront of circular practices.
Dawn breaks in Tanga, Tanzania, and Raeli Athuman Zuberi is already at work. The 30-year-old mother of two isn't just picking up discarded plastic bottles or plastic bags; she's pioneering change. For each item she collects, her smartphone pings – recording data that's reshaping how her city manages waste. But Raeli's story doesn't end on the streets of Tanga. She is part of a larger journey – our global circular economy research and development (R&D) agenda – where Accelerator Labs in 50 countries, including Tanzania, work to close data and knowledge gaps and accelerate local waste innovation for green transformations.
While on this journey, the UNDP Accelerator Labs built a knowledge partnership with IKEA Social Entrepreneurship, a company dedicated to supporting social entrepreneurs worldwide and Ashoka, the world's largest community of changemakers. What unites our organizations is our shared belief that the key to solving complex development challenges lies in continuous learning and new types of collaboration to reduce waste, stimulate innovation and create employment.
With the idea that three heads are better than one, we set out to combine our experience on what role informal entrepreneurs in the Global Majority like Raeli play in circular systems and to gather new actionable insights together.
Experimenting with learning at the crossroads of circular and informal economies
Early in our collaboration, we realized that our individual networks were already engaged with informality and circularity. Yet we lacked a deep understanding of how these two systems interact to support sustainable development. Our shared curiosity drove us to explore this intersection more profoundly.
We have seen that innovators in low-income countries can show us the future of circular economies. Often the most vulnerable, informal workers and innovators are those who create value from waste. This helped us arrive at a critical question: What is the informal economy’s role in the circular economy? The circular economy, centered on resource regeneration and reuse, holds immense promise for building sustainable societies. Meanwhile, the informal economy is a key driver of global economic activity, with the potential to drive inclusive growth and reduce poverty.
Figure 1: Prototyping a network of learning networks
Prototyping open R&D through “campfire conversations”
Picture people gathered around a campfire, sharing stories and experiences on a given topic, but without the formal structure of a meeting. This is the essence of what we call “campfire conversations,” a collective intelligence method used by the UNDP Accelerator Labs to surface tacit knowledge from diverse participants and build new knowledge. They are a key component of our open R&D approach and can only be richer and more insightful when partners join us to “see” the problems more clearly.
We brought this to life by convening grassroots entrepreneurs from the Ashoka network, IKEA team members and UNDP staff for open, exploratory dialogues in campfire conversations. Circularity experts from the cooperative Circle Economy also clustered around the symbolic fire pit to document the process and outcomes.
Ve chai in Viet Nam are predominantly women on bicycles collecting recyclable waste for sale.
Bringing diverse knowledge to the table
Across our Network of Labs in countries such as Ethiopia, Ghana, Zambia, Cameroon, Libya or Haiti, we are seeing a pattern emerge from the bottom-up: informal waste-pickers, often youth and women, are at the forefront of circular practices.
For instance, UNDP Viet Nam, powered by its Accelerator Lab, developed a portfolio approach to tackle plastic pollution based on insights from informal waste-pickers. In Tanzania, the Lab ran a crowd mapping experiment of informal urban structures to design circular economy solutions with a local NGO, student volunteers and community members. UNDP's Accelerator Lab in Panama partnered with Coca-Cola to pilot a reverse logistics model by setting up a collection center to assess the volume of recyclable materials in remote municipalities lacking regular waste services, addressing critical waste management gaps. By bringing these real-world, people-powered insights to the “campfire conversations,” the Labs contributed with lessons from the frontlines of informality and circularity.
IKEA Social Entrepreneurship and Ashoka, who jointly run the Dela Accelerator program, involved several of the social entrepreneurs from their network in this work. For example, Evariste Aohoui from Electronic Waste Africa, shared his experiences of building circular economic models around electronic waste and improving the resilience and status of informal waste-pickers in the Ivory Coast. Agustina Besada from Unplastify provided insights from tackling plastic pollution in Argentina. And Rajendra Joshi from Saath Charitable Trust contributed with his knowledge from building resilience and improving the status of informal waste-pickers in India.
Some of the participants at one of our “campfire conversations” in Älmhult, Sweden.
Lessons from linking diverse learning networks
By connecting UNDP Accelerator Labs, IKEA Social Entrepreneurship, and Ashoka's changemakers, we created a collaborative space that brought diverse perspectives together. Social entrepreneurs exchanged insights with IKEA team members and UNDP staff, highlighting the power of cross-sector learning.
We already knew that informal businesses are the backbone of many economies, particularly in Africa, where 85% of the workforce operates informally. However, our experiment demonstrated that informal entrepreneurs hold a wealth of practical knowledge about circular practices – such as repairing, reusing and repurposing materials. Yet despite their vital contributions, they often face stigma and lack recognition. Our work exposed the need to empower and include informal workers as key partners in the transition towards circular economies.
The concept of "formalization" sparked particularly lively debates. While some participants advocated for the importance of making informal jobs "formal," others cautioned against one-size-fits-all solutions.
This partnership reinforced a key lesson: when addressing complex challenges like understanding the role of informality in circular economies, a variety of viewpoints isn't just helpful – it's essential.
Curating connections to build learning networks
Our experiment was just the beginning. We have gained new insights into how the circular and informal economies connect and interact that will further inform our R&D agenda. Working together with our partners, IKEA Social Entrepreneurship, Ashoka and Circle Economy has shown that by connecting diverse networks, we can uncover insights that no single organization could have surfaced alone. We are excited to see what collaboration with other organizations and especially private sector actors can look like in generating knowledge together.
The world's toughest challenges need all of us, learning and unlearning together, to make real progress. So, if you curate a learning network of your own, connect with us or with other networks. You might find your next partner in an unexpected place.
If you want to learn more, check out our white paper with all the juicy details from this work. You can also watch the launch event replay to hear more about our key learnings on the informal economy’s role in circularity. And if you have ideas or want to connect, feel free to get in touch – we are always excited to connect with fellow innovators and changemakers!