WIEGO Blog

Without waste pickers, cities across Africa, Asia and Latin America would be buried in their own garbage. Informal recyclers have proven essential to keeping cities clean, but they’ve struggled to gain recognition by municipalities that often disregard their labour and the importance of their work.

That is why the achievements of waste pickers in Bogotá, led by the Association of Waste Pickers of Bogotá (ARB), have been so globally pioneering.

The global economic crisis that rocked the world in 2008 led to increased financial hardship for informal workers, most of whom already lived in precarious circumstances. Now, more than ten years on, informal workers continue to struggle for increased security to strengthen their every day working lives.

Without social security benefits, healthcare, childcare, or inclusive regulatory frameworks, they live constantly at risk of falling into deep poverty, even without another major economic disaster.

Street vendors are facing unprecedented challenges in cities across the globe, despite global development goals calling for more economically and socially inclusive cities.

En el Sur Global, los supermercados han proliferado con rapidez, pero ¿qué implicaciones conlleva esta expansión para los vendedores informales de comida y la seguridad alimentaria de las familias con bajos ingresos?