A market vendor sells pineapples to customers at Accra's busy Tema Station Market.
WIEGO is co-hosting an event at New York Climate Week 2026 with Working Horizons, Solidarity Center, the Avina Foundation and the Global Fund for a New Economy to explore how meaningful worker participation in just transition planning and governance can accelerate climate action and build resilience for impacted communities.
Millions of workers in informal employment provide services that are essential to urban resilience: waste recyclers reduce waste emissions and the use of new materials; street and market vendors sustain food security; informal transport workers connect people where formal systems fall short.
However, because these systems sit outside formal planning and investment frameworks, adaptation finance rarely reaches the worker organizations that help sustain cities. How can cities and funders use climate finance to improve infrastructure for workers in informal employment: the essential workers who keep cities functioning every day?
Bringing together researchers, city networks, philanthropy, and worker organizations, the panel will examine how cities and funders can rethink adaptation investments to accelerate climate action and build more resilient, inclusive, and effective urban systems.
Speakers
- Sonia Dias, Urban Policies and Waste Specialist, WIEGO
- Oksana Abboud, International Coordinator, StreetNet International
- Lyndlin Moma, Director of Strategic Impact, IIED
- Jazmin Burgess, Director, Inclusive Climate Action, C40
- Madeleine Thomson, Head, Climate Impacts and Adaptation, Wellcome Trust
The panel will be moderated by Adrian di Giovanni, Team Leader, Economies and Justice Program at the International Development Research Centre of Canada.
About New York City Climate Week 2026
Climate Week NYC, hosted by Climate Group, is the world’s largest climate event and a global platform for advancing climate and economic progress.
It brings together more than 100,000 people, including leaders across business, government, finance and civil society, across more than 1,000 events.
This year’s Climate Week NYC will focus on the energy, the impact, and the action required to remove the barriers to climate progress and deliver change at speed and scale.
Register to attend(this link opens in new window)
