Parallel Session at WCEF 2025 – Empowering informal workers: Pathways for inclusive circularity

Workers in informal employment –who make up close to 60% of the world’s workers– are the driving force behind the circular economy in many countries. But conceptualizations of the circular economy often centre technological fixes driven by actors in the Global North, sidelining the existing circularities of the South and the potential they have as a tool for development and social justice.

This parallel session at the World Circular Economy Forum will provide space for a critical conversation on the role of the informal workforce in driving the circular economy, and speak to the opportunities, constraints and challenges that need to be tackled by workers, and the private and public sectors.

Co-organized by WIEGO, the Circle Economy Foundation, and the Circular Economy Coalition for Latin American and the Caribbean, the session will explore:

• How do workers in Asia, Africa and Latin America integrate every circularities (reuse, repair, recovery and recycling) in their lives?
• What challenges do workers face in circular systems?
• How can circular economy policies and partnerships be designed to better recognize and integrate workers in informal employment, ensuring both environmental outcomes and improved livelihoods?
• What can we learn from Brazil’s approach to waste management which includes waste picker cooperatives? What other inclusive examples exist?

Speakers include:

• Davinah Milenge Uwella, Chief Programme Coordinator and Lead of Circular Economy Initiatives at the African Development Bank
• Anderson Cooperlol Nassif, President of the Associação Nacional de Catadores e Catadoras de Materiais Recicláveis, ANCAT
• Kabir Arora, Secretary General at the International Alliance of Waste Pickers

The event will be co-moderated by Matthew Fraser (Director of Circularity Gap Solutions at Circle Economy Foundation) and Beatriz Martins Carneiro (Regional Head of Finance and Economic Transformations in Latin America and the Caribbean at the UN Environment Programme).

Sonia Dias (WIEGO’s Waste Specialist and Coordinator of the Circular Economy Thematic Chamber of the Brazilian Forum on Climate Change) will provide keynote remarks.