From 2024 to 2027, WIEGO, with support from Canada’s IDRC, is studying how climate change affects the urban informal economy in Brazil, India, South Africa and Thailand. The project documents how workers in informal employment adapt, highlights climate-resilient urban infrastructure, and explores inclusive climate finance to build fairer and more sustainable cities.
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Chaninporn Duangnguen, a market trader, is resting inside her house in Bangkok, Thailand, on May 8, 2025.
Across WIEGO’s global network, climate change is a crisis for the urban informal economy, yet its impacts on these livelihoods remain overlooked in climate governance and under-researched. To address this gap, WIEGO, with support from Canada’s IDRC, is leading a three-year project focused on street vendors, home-based workers and waste pickers in Brazil, India, South Africa and Thailand.
The project documents how these workers experience extreme heat, flooding and other climate shocks, and how they adapt individually and collectively. Using surveys, focus groups and participatory research, it captures coping and adaptation strategies and highlights worker-led solutions. With Mahila Housing Trust and Asiye eTafuleni, the initiative showcases good practices in climate-resilient urban infrastructure, from slum upgrading to inclusive street market design.
We analyze inclusive climate finance and identify ways to channel resources toward workers and their organizations. We use the evidence that the project produces to strengthen advocacy in local and global arenas, influence urban governance, and support climate policies that are inclusive, effective and grounded in workers’ realities.
This project researches, documents, and promotes climate resilience strategies for workers in informal employment by monitoring climate impacts, enhancing adaptation, investigating climate finance, and strengthening policy advocacy at local and national levels.
In Brazil, this evidence has guided municipalities in designing and providing infrastructure for waste pickers. In India, WIEGO is supporting a street-vendor infrastructure pilot in Delhi and collaborating with authorities to include workers in informal employment in heat action plans. In Bangkok, HomeNet Thailand (HNT) is exploring how to leverage advocacy pathways with relevant national government ministries to address health, work and climate linkages.
By connecting local evidence with national dialogues and global processes, such as COP and the IPCC, the project advances more inclusive and sustainable climate and urban policies.
