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On April 8, dairy producers and advocates from CalCAN and the California Dairy Campaign met with more than twenty legislative offices...

The post Dairy Producers Show Policymakers that AMMP Funding is Critical to Meeting Methane Reduction Goals and Staying Viable in California appeared first on CalCAN - California Climate & Agriculture Network.

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) is inviting expressions of interest from qualified, Africa-based firms to provide social media consultancy services for a period of 12 months, renewable based on performance.
AFSA is Africa’s largest civil society network, uniting 48 member organisations across 50 countries and advancing agroecology and food sovereignty for over 200 million people across the continent. As we scale our digital presence, we are seeking a creative, experienced, and mission-aligned social media partner to help amplify our work.

The consultancy covers two key areas. The first is the promotion and digital campaign management of AFSA’s four major Pan-African flagship campaigns — My Food Is African, Agroecology4Climate Action, Seed Is Life, and Defend Our Land, Restore Our Soil. The selected firm will be expected to develop campaign strategies, produce short-form videos, design visual assets, manage content across platforms, and deliver regular performance reports.

The second area covers the production and promotion of AFSA’s newly launched podcast, The Battle for African Agriculture, hosted by AFSA General Coordinator Dr. Million Belay. The consultancy will manage end-to-end weekly episode recording, professional audio and video editing, multi-platform promotion across YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok, as well as audience growth and analytics reporting.

Interested firms are required to submit a company profile, portfolio evidence of previous campaigns and podcast production experience, team and influencer profiles, a pilot social media plan, and a detailed budget proposal.

Proposals must be submitted to afsa@afsafrica.org by 27 April 2026 at 23:59 East Africa Time, with the subject line: EOI – Social Media Consultancy for AFSA Campaigns & Podcast. For technical inquiries, please contact kirubel.tadele@afsafrica.org.

For full details on the scope of work, submission requirements, and evaluation criteria, please refer to the Terms of Reference (TOR) attached.

Download the TOR Télécharger les Termes de Référence

Image Description: PPT members highlighted in yellow, on a glowy background of a bus stop on a summer day.

Bust out those cell phones and lace up those sneakers! 

Transit riders in Pittsburgh want more bus shelters, better bus stop amenities and connected sidewalks that take us to and from where we need to go! Our biggest takeaway from two years of bus shelter audits is that we cannot have bus shelters, benches and other amenities installed at our bus stops if our sidewalks are in poor or nonexistent condition. 

Following the lead of our friends Pittsburgh Walks, PPT will host a series of sidewalk audits this spring and summer focusing on neighborhoods with high rider bus stops and busy transit corridors. 

We will assess the quality of sidewalks in Pittsburgh and record findings via a mobile survey developed by the City of Pittsburgh. The collected data helps the City identify where sidewalks need to be improved or built, prioritize pedestrian infrastructure projects, and make the case for sidewalk funding. 

The goal of these sidewalk audits is for participants to learn how to use this new tool and go on to gather data independently. Ultimately we aim to collect information about sidewalks (or where they’re missing) for every street in the City. This is a group effort and WE NEED YOU!

Audit Dates & Registration:

Saturday May 16th 10am – 12pm, Sheraden
Saturday June 27th 10am-12pm, Hazelwood
Saturday August 22nd 10am -12pm, Hill District 

What to Expect:

• Before the event, participants must watch this 15 minute video.

During the event, we’ll:

• Have a lesson on what makes sidewalks safe and accessible, how to use the web application.
• Pair up to walk several blocks of neighborhood streets, and record our observations using an online survey on our cell phones.

Requirements:

• Must have charged cell phone that can reach the internet and take photos.
• Must be able to navigate web browsers and privacy settings on cell phone.
• Pittsburgh weather can be unpredictable this time of year! Come dressed for the elements (good walking shoes, winter coats, hats, gloves, etc.). We will be outside for about an hour. 

Accessibility:

• We cannot guarantee the accessibility or safety of these walks as some of the terrain may have broken to no sidewalks. Some regions may be hilly and harder to walk on.
• Blind and low vision people will not be able to use the mobile survey application, but your input is of great value. You will be paired with a sighted person so that you can access the survey.
• If you have individual accessibility questions, or to request ASL interpretation, please reach out to Nicole@pittsburghforpublictransit.org.
  • ASL interpretation must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance.

You can attend on your own, or bring a group of neighbors, friends, family, or coworkers! This is a great way to get your steps in, meet fellow community members, and help make our streets safe, accessible, and enjoyable for everyone!

The post Sidewalk summer is back: hit the streets with PPT for sidewalk audits appeared first on Pittsburghers for Public Transit.

Editorial

This first quarter 2026 edition of the AFSA Newsletter captures a period of intense reflection, sharpened advocacy, and strategic action across Africa and beyond. From Lilongwe to Dakar, Garuga to Cartagena, AFSA and its members engaged critical questions shaping the future of African food systems, including school meals, land justice, seed sovereignty, public agricultural finance, cross border agroecological trade, territorial markets, and citizen mobilisation. Across these interventions, one message stands out clearly: the struggle for food sovereignty is not only about production, but also about power, policy, markets, culture, and the right of African people to define their own food futures.

In these pages, readers will see how AFSA continued to link grassroots realities with continental and global advocacy. This edition highlights the adoption of the Lilongwe Declaration on agroecology based school and college meals, AFSA’s participation in ICARRD+20 in Colombia, the launch of a major report on the African Development Bank’s role in reshaping African agriculture, renewed calls to centre farmers in regional seed policy processes, and important internal moments of alignment through the AFSA staff retreat, the Citizens Working Group on Agroecology meeting, and the TAFS annual review workshop. It also documents growing momentum in public campaigns and movement spaces, including the #MyFoodMyIdentity online campaign and continued efforts to strengthen agroecological trade, territorial markets, and African food cultures.

What this edition reflects most of all is AFSA’s continued commitment to building a food systems movement rooted in justice, resilience, dignity, and African knowledge. Whether confronting corporate capture, defending land and seed rights, supporting local markets, or reshaping public narratives around food, AFSA’s work remains anchored in the conviction that Africa’s food future must be led by its farmers, communities, women, youth, and social movements. We invite you to read, reflect, and continue walking with us as we strengthen the movement for agroecology and food sovereignty across the continent.

Download the newsletter here

Image Description: Group photo at spring training has 100 people holding up signs and smiling with fists up.

Transit for All means every community – urban and rural, large and small – and thats who the movement is fighting for!

150 transit riders and transit workers from across Pennsylvania and the United States gathered at the end of March to build organizing skill and strengthen community.

The movement keeps on growing! For two days at the end of March, 150 transit riders and transit workers gathered in Pittsburgh for the third-annual Transit for All Organizing Spring Training. Attendees and speakers came from all across PA and the United States. Their purpose was clear: they were there to build organizing skills to strengthen a movement that’s fighting for transit for all – whether in rural communities, small towns or big cities.

The training was organized by Pittsburghers for Public Transit, who leads the Transit for All PA! campaign. The program was jam-packed with opportunities for attendees to learn new skills, learn from victories won in other cities, and meet inspiring new friends from other communities!

Read on for a recap of the two-days or check out photos here!

Day 1 Recap: Welcome to Pittsburgh & the Transit Justice Movement image description: County Executive Sara Innamorato addreses transit riders and transit workers at the 2026 Transit for All Organizing Spring Training Welcoming Happy Hour

On Friday, attendees from out of town met at the PPT office for a Transit Tour led by PPT Members. The Transit Tour ended at the Welcome Happy Hour hosted at Aslin Brewery in the Strip District.

More than 100 people were in attendance for delicious food and drinks. Some people were new to transit organizing but many were veteran organisers for better public transit. Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato even stopped by to welcome people to town and encourage advocates to keep organizing for better transit access!

Day 2 Recap: Training Day!

Image Description: Four panelists sit behind a table. One is speaking dynamically and moving their hands as the others smile and laugh. A sign language interpreter is translating in the background.

Day 2 was where the magic happened. Folks woke up bright and early to join for an 8am breakfast and some artmaking with Arts Excurions Unlimited, a community arts group from Pittsburgh’s Hazlewood neighborhood.

By 9am the plenary kicked off, led by Veronica Coptis, Senior Advisor, Taproot Earth. She began the day by driving home a theme that would be central to the training: that rural and urban communities must work together to change a system that moves us all. Veronica leads a number of rural organizing projects and shared that regardless of the community she’s working in, transportation is always a top need. Veronica was joined by Andrew Slack, a PA-based facilitator who led a panel discussion with Kearasten Jordan and Laura Pauls-Thomas, both Transit for All PA! Organizing Fellows from Lancaster, about transit needs in PA’s rural communities and small towns.

image description: Alisa Grishmand and Dr. Jose Badger present on a Transit for All Organizing Spring Training panel

After the Plenary discussion, the energy didn’t stop. There were 7 workshops throughout the day, led by PPT Members and transit organizing experts from PA and across the US:

• Narrative Change: Our Stories Build the World We Want, led by Nadia Awad, Content Director, Narrative Initiative, Andrew Slack, PA-based narrative strategist, facilitator, and storyteller, and Clair Hopper, Digital Organizer, Pittsburghers for Public Transit and Transit for All PA!
  
• VoteTransit: Bus Mayor Elections and Beyond, led by Betsy Plum, Executive Director of Riders Alliance (New York City), Barb Warwick, Pittsburgh City Council member, District 5, and facilitated by Laura Chu Wiens, Executive Director of Pittsburghers for Public Transit/Transit for All PA!
  
• Mobile Workshop! Field Communications: Storytelling from the Street, led by Joe Conniff, Video Editor, Educator, and Producer, withremote support from Marcelese Cooper, Teaching Assistant Professor in the Film and Media Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh
  
• Bargaining for the Common Good: Worker/Community Solidarity, led by Connor Chapman, University of Pittsburgh Graduate Workers Union and Pittsburghers for Public Transit and Ronni Getz, UPMC Magee Women’s Hospital, SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania

• Organizing with Disability Justice at the Center, led by Anna Zivarts, a leading author, transit rider organizer and founder of the Nondriver Alliance out of Washington state, and Dr. Josie Badger, director of the national RSA-Parent Training, Information, technical assistance center (RAISE), and founder of several orgs including the Pennsylvania Youth Leadership Network (PYLN), the Children’s Hospital Advocacy Network for Guidance and Empowerment (CHANGE), and J.Badger Consulting, moderated by Alisa Grishman, founder of Access Mob Pittsburgh and PPT Board member

image description: Two attendees from Transit Riders United in Detroit socialize talk together

• Big Tech in Transit: Automation, Microtransit, Surveillance, and Data, led Dr. Sarah Fox, Assistant Professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University; Director, Tech Solidarity Lab, Sue Scanlon, Transit Operator, Pittsburgh Regional Transit; Pittsburghers for Public Transit board member, and Ziggy Edwards, Leader, Mon-Oakland Connector Campaign
  
• Transit Isn’t Just Urban: Organizing in Small Systems & Everywhere, led by Connor Descheemaker (they/them), Statewide Campaign Manager, Transit for All PA!/Pittsburghers for Public Transit, andT4APA! Organizing Fellows Angela Adler and Laura Pauls-Thomas (Lancaster), Benjamin Felker-Quinn and Andria Ahrens (Lehigh Valley)

You can learn more about all of these great workshops and speakers on the 2026 Transit for All Organizing Spring Training homepage! And you can access the slides from each of these presentations at this Google Folder – feel free to share them, just please credit the presenters on each panel.

Attendees took a break from that great lineup and enjoyed some delicious lunch, snacks, and event took time out for a Movement Moment: Grounding, Accessible Yoga Practice led by PPT Member Mona Meszar, who is a yoga instructor, massage therapist, and community activist!

Spring Training was a blast! And now with these new skills and connections, transit riders and workers are ready to grow this movement.

Missed the training or want to get involved? Join us at the next transit organizing meeting to join the community! Join the next meeting here! image description: 7 organizers from Philadelphia pose with signs at the 2026 Transit for All Organizing Spring Training

The post Transit Riders & Workers Skill Up at Organizing Spring Training appeared first on Pittsburghers for Public Transit.

Organizations representing workers in informal employment – waste pickers, home‐based workers, street vendors and domestic workers, including migrant workers – recognize the social and solidarity economy (SSE) as a critical pathway to improving livelihoods, strengthening collective organization and advancing decent work. This is particularly important given that women are disproportionately represented in informal employment due to structural inequalities, including limited access to opportunities and persistent gender and cultural biases.

For global networks such as HomeNet International (HNI), International Alliance of Waste Pickers (IAWP), International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF), StreetNet International (SNI) and Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), SSE entities including cooperatives, associations, mutuals and self‐help groups have served as practical economic infrastructures through which workers organize production, stabilize incomes, access resources and strengthen their collective voice.

We are concerned that growing global uncertainty is placing renewed strain on international cooperation at a time when multilateral efforts, including those of the International Labour Organization (ILO), remain essential to advancing decent work for workers in informal employment.

Across the world, workers in informal employment face severe decent‐work deficits: unstable incomes, limited access to social protection, restricted bargaining power and persistent barriers to formal recognition as workers. Today, 58% of the global workforce (representing two billion people) are informally employed – in sectors such as waste picking, home‐based work, street vending, domestic work and care services.

For these workers, the social and solidarity economy represents far more than an aspirational concept. For millions of workers in informal employment, SSE entities function as concrete pathways to improve incomes and livelihoods. Through cooperatives, associations, mutuals, self‐help groups and other collective economic organizations, workers are able to coordinate production, reduce costs, stabilize incomes, access solidarity‐based finance and build forms of social protection where formal systems remain inaccessible. These collective and solidarity‐based economic arrangements are particularly crucial for women in informal employment, who face structural inequalities, lower incomes, greater exposure to violence, harassment and discrimination, and a disproportionate burden of unpaid care work.

The experiences of workers in our sectors demonstrate how collective economic organization strengthens workers’ bargaining power with municipalities, governments, employers and enterprises. By pooling resources, knowledge and infrastructure, SSE entities help workers overcome structural barriers that would be impossible to address individually. They do this while reinforcing democratic governance and collective representation.

Our organizations have welcomed the recognition of cooperatives and the wider social and solidarity economy in international labour standards, such as ILO Recommendation 193 on the Promotion of Cooperatives, 2002, and Recommendation 204 concerning the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy, 2015. The 2022 ILO Resolution concerning Decent Work and the Social and Solidarity Economy and the 2023 and 2024 UN resolutions to promote the social and solidarity economy also reflect important milestones in recognizing the role of collective economic models in advancing decent work. In addition, the 2025 ILO policy guidelines for the promotion of decent work in recycling highlights the importance of SSE approaches in supporting workers in informal employment, particularly waste pickers.

Leadership within the UN system, particularly through the ILO’s work with its constituents and partners, has played a critical role in furthering research, policy dialogue and international cooperation to advance the social and solidarity economy. We greatly appreciate the partnership that has developed over the years between
our global networks and the ILO, including its Cooperative and Social and Solidarity Economy Unit, and we look forward to continuing and deepening this collaboration in the years ahead.

In the context of tightening fiscal space, competing priorities and heightened global uncertainty, it is essential that the progress made in recognizing and supporting the social and solidarity economy not only continues but expands.

The social and solidarity economy should not be understood as a marginal or secondary approach to economic development. Rather, it represents a set of existing economic practices through which workers in informal employment collectively build more stable livelihoods, strengthen their rights, and contribute to more inclusive and resilient economies and societies.

In this sense, promoting and defending the social and solidarity economy is intrinsically linked to advancing gender equality, not only by expanding women’s economic opportunities, but by contributing to the transformation of structural conditions of exploitation and discrimination that underpin both informal employment and gender inequality.

Maintaining and strengthening policy, legal and programmatic support for the social and solidarity economy within the ILO’s mandate and across the broader multilateral system is essential to ensuring that pathways toward decent work for millions of workers in informal employment remain grounded not only in market mechanisms but also in solidarity, democratic participation and collective economic organization.

We urge governments, workers’ organizations, international institutions and development partners to boost the policy and institutional frameworks that will enable the social and solidarity economy to deploy its full potential.

About HomeNet International

HomeNet International is a global network of membership‐based workers’ organizations that represents more than 1.3 million home‐based workers, from 71 organizations spread across 30 countries.
Visit www.homenetinternational.org.

About IAWP

The International Alliance of Waste Pickers (IAWP) is a global union of 50 waste picker organizations, representing more than 460,000 workers across 34 countries. The IAWP is committed to advancing the rights and strengthening the organizing efforts of waste pickers.
Visit www.globalrec.org.

About IDWF

The International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF) is internationally recognized as a Global Union Federation. Made up of 93 affiliates from 70 countries, the IDWF serves a membership of over 675,900 domestic/ household workers. Most are organized in trade unions and others in associations, networks and worker cooperatives.
Visit www.idwfed.org.

About StreetNet International

StreetNet International is a global organization of committed informal traders, with the goal to promote and leverage an autonomous and democratic alliance of street vendors, market vendors, hawkers and cross‐border traders. StreetNet International is present in more than 50 countries and represents over 700,000 members worldwide.
Visit www.streetnet.org.za.

About WIEGO

Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) is a global network focused on empowering the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy to secure their livelihoods. We believe all workers should have equal economic opportunities, rights, protection and voice. WIEGO promotes change by improving statistics and expanding knowledge on the informal economy, building networks and capacity among informal worker organizations and, jointly with the networks and organizations, influencing local, national and international policies.
Visit www.wiego.org.

Defending_SSE_Amid_Global_UncertaintyDownload

The post Defending the Social and SolidarityEconomy Amid Global Uncertainty appeared first on International Alliance of Waste Pickers.

The Bus Line Refresh could be the biggest service change in a generation. Your chance to make it better is right now! Learn how the proposals could impact you—and tell PRT how you feel about it. 

Explore the service changes that affect you

There are many ways to explore the changes PRT is proposing under the Bus Line Refresh. You can: 

• Review an interactive map of the proposed system changes (works best on a computer or tablet)
• Find your frequented routes from a list of affected routes, then click on their new names to learn about how they might change
• Model your frequent journeys on the Transit App on your mobile device (check out our tutorial below)
• Attend a public meeting with PRT (we’re hosting one on April 8th!)

After you do any of these options, it’s critical that you submit a public comment telling PRT how these changes would affect you. They need to know your thoughts in order to incorporate them into the proposal!

Join the April 8th meeting to learn more about transit changes How to model your journeys on the Transit App

Note that this method requires access to a mobile device, like a smartphone. If you don’t have access to one, we recommend using the other tools listed above to explore the proposed Bus Line Refresh. 

1. Download the Transit App to your mobile device. The app is available on both iPhone and Android. (Bonus: the app can be used to plan your future transit trips, and can even give you notifications when service changes or advocacy opportunities are available!) 
2. You may need to make an account to use the app. 
3. In the app’s main screen, type a destination in the “Where to?” bar. Select it from the list of results when it appears.
4. Once you’ve selected your destination, you can also edit your starting location—for example, you might want to understand how your commute from your workplace to your doctor’s office might change.
5. In the white portion of the screen, you’ll see a selection of potential routes you could take to reach your destination.
   The trips at the top are those you could take under the current PRT system.
   If you scroll down below these, you’ll see a section titled “PRT Preview Mode”, with potential future routes listed. 
6. Click on a future route you’d like to explore. The app will then show you a map of the route, with details on how long the trip would take you, as well as scheduled frequencies and stops. 
7. At the bottom of this window, there is a banner with a button titled “Give feedback”. This will take you to PRT’s feedback page for the entire Bus Line Refresh project. 
8. When you’re done exploring this route, be sure to press the red “X” button at the top right of the screen to exit preview mode. 

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Don’t miss your chance to shape the bus network

If you or someone you know takes transit frequently, PRT needs to know your thoughts. There are a lot of ways to give feedback on the proposed Bus Line Refresh: 

• Find your routes from an online list, click their new names, and leave route-specific feedback
• Send an email to PRT with your comments
• Call PRT at 412-442-2000
• Fill out a paper survey at home or at your nearest Carnegie Library location
  • También puedes descargar una encuesta en papel en español!
• Attend a public meeting with PRT

And of course, the best way (because it comes with community):

• Join our next monthly meeting on April 8th to hear PRT present, and give them your feedback in person

Join the April 8th meeting to learn more about transit changes

The post Explore How the Bus Line Refresh Could Affect Your Commute appeared first on Pittsburghers for Public Transit.

Hi there

After a brief period of hiatus we’re very happy to announce that we will be returning to regular programing on May Day, May 1 at 1pm EST for a webinar on protecting workers’ safety in the climate crisis.

Our panelists, to be announced shortly, will speak about the vital work trade unions do to protect workers from rising temperatures, new pollutants and other stresses on the job and what they are doing to ensure that their members are safe.

We will have a Zoom link to RSVP shortly but if you would like to discuss joining the panel, please reach out to convener@greeneonnet.ca

See you there.

Our Guests:

Alex Callahan: National Director of Health, Safety and Environment with the Canadian Labour Congress.

 Anne Tennier: President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety 

Roger Duffy: Health & Safety Representative Canadian Union of Public Employees

Registration info:

You are invited to register for a Zoom webinar!

When: May 1, 2026 01:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Topic:  Green Economy Network

Register in advance for this webinar.

See you there

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) launches a new report asking a critical question: Is the African Development Bank (AfDB) financing food systems that truly serve Africa’s people?

Based on an analysis of 20 AfDB-supported agricultural projects, this study, researched by Dr Keiron Audain for AFSA, reveals a troubling pattern. Despite strong rhetoric around food security and climate resilience, a significant share of AfDB financing continues to reinforce agro-industrial models built on monocultures, synthetic inputs, and corporate value chains. Meanwhile, farmer-managed seed systems, agroecological practices, territorial markets, and Indigenous knowledge remain underfunded and marginalised.

The report exposes persistent gaps in transparency and participation. Communities are frequently consulted but rarely empowered to shape decisions. Investments that affect land, livelihoods, and diets are too often designed without meaningful co-creation with the smallholder farmers who feed the continent.

At a time when Africa faces escalating climate shocks, biodiversity loss, and food insecurity, public finance cannot continue to support systems that deepen dependency, degrade soils, and concentrate power in corporate hands. Africa does not need a blind expansion of industrial agriculture. It needs investment in agroecology, crop diversity, resilient seed systems, and local food economies that strengthen sovereignty and community control.

This report is not just an analysis. It is a call to redirect agricultural finance toward justice, ecological integrity, and food sovereignty. AfDB and African governments must ensure that public resources build resilient, community-rooted food systems rather than entrenching models that undermine them.

Download the full report here.

Protect Our Land, Restore Our Soil: Collective Territorialities for Land Justice, Pastoralist Futures, and Ecological Restoration

As civil society organisations, social movements, faith-based actors, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralist and peasant organisations from Africa and across the Global South, we come to ICARRD+20 at a moment of deep crisis and urgent possibility.

Twenty years after the first International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development, rural communities across the world continue to face dispossession, land concentration and ecological destruction. Despite global commitments to end hunger and poverty, land and food systems are increasingly controlled by corporate and financial interests, while communities that produce food remain marginalised and insecure.

Across Africa and other regions, customary and collective land systems are being undermined in the name of development, conservation, climate mitigation and large-scale investment. Carbon offset projects, extractive industries, agribusiness expansion and speculative land markets are accelerating dispossession, soil degradation and social inequality, often excluding communities from territories they have governed collectively for generations. At the same time, agribusiness corporations and financial investors are driving the rapid expansion of factory farming and industrial livestock production across Africa, concentrating land and resources, degrading ecosystems, and undermining pastoralist and small-scale livestock systems essential to food sovereignty.

Pastoralist communities are among those most severely affected. As 2026 is the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, this conference must recognise pastoralists as central to sustainable food systems and ecological resilience. Policies that restrict livestock mobility, privatise communal rangelands or convert grazing lands to agribusiness, conservation or carbon-offset projects undermine pastoralist livelihoods while intensifying conflict, poverty and environmental degradation. Yet pastoralism remains one of the most climate-resilient land-use systems in drylands. Through mobility and communal rangeland management, pastoralists sustain livelihoods, supply vital meat and milk production, and maintain ecological balance in areas where crop farming is often unsustainable.

Meanwhile, communities defending their territories face criminalisation and violence. Women pastoralists and small-scale producers, youth, and Indigenous Peoples remain excluded from decision-making processes, despite being central to food production and environmental stewardship.

ICARRD+20 must therefore not be a commemorative event. It must become a turning point.

Our Calls to Governments and International Institutions

Ahead of ICARRD+20, we call on governments, international institutions, and development partners to commit to the following:

1. Recognise and protect collective and customary land tenure systems, including individual and collective land rights as affirmed in CESCR, UNDRIP and UNDROP.
2. Protect pastoralist rangelands and livestock mobility, including cross-border corridors essential for climate adaptation and peace, and prevent conversion of rangelands to inappropriate uses such as monoculture tree plantations.
3. Implement genuine agrarian reform and equitable land redistribution, prioritising landless farmers, women, youth, pastoralists and Indigenous communities, while addressing the historical and political drivers of land degradation and induced land scarcity.
4. End land speculation and financialisation, including large-scale land acquisitions and carbon or biodiversity credit schemes that dispossess communities.
5. Redirect agricultural and climate finance toward agroecology, rangeland restoration and community-led food systems, and integrate pro-pastoralist strategies into National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Promote conservation models that uphold pastoralists’ rights and ensure restoration strengthens pastoralist livelihoods as part of a just green transition.
6. Invest in decentralised infrastructure and services compatible with mobile pastoralist systems, including water, veterinary care, markets, education and health.
7. Guarantee meaningful participation of affected communities, and free prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples, in land, agriculture and climate decision-making.
8. Protect land and environmental defenders, and end violence, criminalisation and forced displacement.
9. Establish binding corporate accountability mechanisms for human rights violations and ecological harm across global value chains.

Toward Land Justice, Pastoralist Futures and Ecological Restoration

The future lies not in further commodifying land and food systems, but in restoring community control over territories, securing pastoralist mobility and commons, and supporting agroecological transitions rooted in justice and ecological integrity.

ICARRD+20 must renew global commitments to agrarian reform, land justice, and food sovereignty, led by communities that sustain the world’s food systems and ecosystems.

Land justice is climate justice. Pastoralist mobility is ecological resilience.

image description: photo of a red PRT bus on the left, on the right text says “Public Transit Must Be The Star” with an NFL Draft logo & red star

On April 23-25 of this year, Pittsburgh will take the national stage by hosting the NFL draft. This will be an unprecedented opportunity to showcase our region: the event is estimated to draw between 500,000-700,000 attendees across three days, around twice the total population of the City of Pittsburgh. The NFL draft events will be located primarily at the Point and at Acrisure Stadium, and success will depend in part on whether hundreds of thousands of residents and visitors will be able to efficiently access the festivities. 

Because our beautiful region is hemmed in with rivers and hills, the arterial roadways and bridges to reach these sites are limited. If the majority of these hundreds of thousands of event attendees plan to drive themselves Downtown or to the North Shore, the NFL Draft will be an unmitigated disaster, with delays lasting for hours in all directions. It is therefore critical that both event workers and the NFL Draft visitors are both supported and incentivized to take public, mass transit. 

In other words, well-advertised, easy to use, and abundant transit service must be the heart of any winning strategy for the NFL Draft.

There are a number of key stakeholders who must play a role in order for transit to be the easy and obvious choice for stadium and hospitality workers, local attendees and out-of town visitors through the NFL draft days. Below we offer our recommendations for each:

Recommendations for Pittsburgh Regional Transit:

Recommendations for the NFL/Visit Pittsburgh/Stadium Authority:

Recommendations for City of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County and PennDOT:

Recommendations for Pittsburgh Regional Transit: 

Service: 

• PRT must provide both robust regular transit service and event shuttle service. Pittsburgh Regional Transit should ensure that all routes, throughout the County, run at least as frequently as their current rush hour service during the entire event. Frequent transit service needs to serve local residents as well as out-of-town visitors. Hundreds of thousands of Pittsburgh area residents are anticipated to attend and work the Draft events and staff local businesses, and visitors to the City will be staying in every available hotel room and Airbnb across the region. 
• Transit workers should be provided additional compensation during the NFL draft in order to incentivize workers to pick up extra shifts and to diminish call offs.

Marketing: Pittsburgh Regional Transit must have a marketing campaign to encourage transit use during the NFL draft. 

• PRT should deploy a slogan like,  “PRT is your ticket to the action”, “PRT is your valet to the game,” “PRT makes it easy,” or ”Transit riders get the red carpet,” which would be memorable and would show that PRT has plans to support rider access to the event. 
• PRT should communicate clearly on its channels – social media, Ready2Ride, its website- and third party apps to help riders navigate the system during the event. There should be an NFL draft landing page on the PRT website that includes fares/fare payment, and service/schedules/maps.
• PRT should advertise at the airport, through Airbnb, at Downtown and North Shore restaurants/bars/coffee shops (WMATA in DC has advertisements on coasters in Washington DC bars), in local hotel “welcome guides to Pittsburgh”, and on bus shelters.
• PRT’s canvass team could table at the Pittsburgh airport, on the North Shore, at Acrisure Stadium and at the Point to provide personalized information on fares and service.

Recommendations for the NFL/Visit Pittsburgh/Stadium Authority: 

–The NFL Draft One Pass Mobile App should prominently feature a link to a (future) Pittsburgh Regional Transit NFL Draft landing page as the top recommendation for how to get around. Parking information should be secondary.

–Other portals for NFL Draft information including the Steelers App and the Visit Pittsburgh page should prominently link to and recommend Pittsburgh Regional Transit for locals and out-of-town visitors to get around during the Draft.  

–Buses should get priority access to the front of the stadium. Reducing overall traffic congestion, excessively long commute times and walks to access the event – by rolling out the red carpet for public transit- will make for a successful event and happier attendees. 

Recommendations for City of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County and PennDOT:

–Buses must not be stuck in mixed traffic during the event. There should be a careful audit of where buses experience delays during stadium events and events at the Point, and specific interventions made to address them. For instance, one lane of Reedsdale Street should be made bus-only, and one lane on North Ave should be made bus-only. The bus only lanes downtown -particularly Liberty Ave- should have no exceptions for cars during the event, and should have traffic enforcement officers to ensure that they are kept clear for buses. The HOV lanes on 279 should remain open for buses throughout the three days of the NFL draft.

Conclusion: The City of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Regional Transit have the opportunity to shine at this year’s NFL Draft, and we’re eager to see it happen.

We’re calling on Pittsburgh Regional Transit, the NFL and Pittsburgh tourism bureau, and our municipal champions to ensure that our transit service, PRT’s communications and marketing efforts, and our region’s infrastructure is primed to make transit the easiest and best option for locals and visitors alike. Of course, these are not comprehensive recommendations—we trust that many other good proposals are being brought to the table. But we hope that together, these institutions can play their part towards making abundant, efficient transit the ticket to a winning NFL Draft.

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Across the world, governments and private actors are shutting down dumpsites in the name of modernization, climate action, or urban order. But for the millions of waste pickers who have sustained recycling systems for decades, these closures do not feel like transitions. They are evictions. They mean losing the right to work, being pushed out of the city, being excluded from decisions that shape our lives, and being blamed for environmental problems we did not create. What is presented as progress often results in repression: sites close overnight, police arrive before social services, and companies take control of materials without acknowledging the workers who made those materials valuable in the first place.

From Africa to the Asia-Pacific, from the Americas to Europe, our affiliates report the same pattern when their workplaces are closed: no consultation, no guarantees, and no place for waste pickers in the so-called “new systems.” Environmental narratives, technical language, and regulatory frameworks are repeatedly used to justify the exclusion of workers—especially women, migrants, and racialized communities who already face multiple forms of inequality. These are not isolated cases; they represent a global political trend that threatens our livelihoods, our dignity, and the continuity of organized waste picker movements worldwide.

We reject the idea that waste pickers are a problem to be removed. For generations, we have diverted enormous quantities of materials from dumpsites, reduced emissions, and protected ecosystems—long before recycling, reusing, and repairing became part of official environmental agendas. Today, despite vast amounts of valuable materials being wasted or captured by corporations, waste pickers are increasingly denied access to recyclables, reusable materials, and repairable goods. A system that discards workers while protecting profits is neither modern nor sustainable.

No dumpsite closure can be legitimate without the full participation of waste pickers from the outset. We demand recognition as workers who need rights, and a decisive role in the planning, implementation, and monitoring of any waste system reforms. Any restructuring must guarantee secure livelihoods, continued access to materials, and real alternatives for those who choose different pathways. Anything less is forced displacement.

We denounce all forms of criminalization and repression. Sudden closures, violent evictions, and narratives that portray waste pickers as obstacles to environmental progress are incompatible with a just and democratic transition.

We draw a clear line: we will not accept closures that erase our work, deny our access to materials, projects that dispossess us of value, or models that treat poor workers as disposable. Our vision is of cities where waste pickers are recognized as environmental workers, with dignified working conditions, stable incomes, political voice, and shared control over the systems they sustain.

We speak with one global voice: Work with us. Invest in us. Recognize us. Partner with us. A world without waste pickers is a world with more waste—and less justice.

Collective Political Statement on Dumpsite ClosuresDownload

Download in:

English, Spanish, French, Nepali, Hindi, Indonesian, Filipino, Portuguese

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Waste Pickers_ Guardians of the Circular EconomyDownload

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2026 March 1 statement IAWPDownload

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Thiès, Senegal, 12 February 2026

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), in collaboration with civil society organisations and farmers from West and Central Africa, has expressed deep concern about the sub-regional workshop on the seed sector organised in Abidjan by CORAF (West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development) and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations) from 11 to 13 February 2025.

While recognising the importance of regional dialogue on seed systems, AFSA and its partners warn that the current process risks violating farmers’ rights by marginalising the peasant seed systems that are the foundation of food production in Africa. Their rights are, in fact, guaranteed internationally by major legal instruments, namely the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) and Article 9 of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA).

The workshop, which aims to define regional strategies for the seed sector, has largely excluded peasant organisations and civil society actors with long experience of peasant seed systems, including community seed banks and seed boxes, seed fairs and participatory seed development initiatives throughout the region.

“Any seed strategy that excludes farmers and their organisations is fundamentally flawed,” said Alihou Ndiaye, coordinator of the West African Farmers’ Seed Committee (COASP), a member organisation of AFSA. “Farmers are not peripheral actors. They are the guardians and innovators of the seed systems that feed Africa. Policies must be developed with them, not for them.”

AFSA also expressed concern about the continued use of the term “informal seeds” in policy discussions, even though African Union processes under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) recognise peasant seed systems as essential to agricultural transformation and climate resilience.

According to recent African Union studies, between 80 and 90 per cent of the seeds used by African farmers come from peasant seed systems, but these systems remain poorly supported, if at all, by policies and regulations.

“To label farmers’ seeds as ‘informal’ or inferior is to ignore the reality that these systems provide the majority of seeds used in Africa,” said Famara Diédhiou, coordinator of the AFSA seed working group. “Farmers’ seeds are diverse, resilient and adapted to local conditions. The African Union’s CAADP process now recognises farmers’ seed systems and indigenous seed systems as essential to Africa’s agricultural future, and regional strategies must align with this shift by recognising farmers as the legitimate custodians of our seed diversity.”

Civil society organisations have also criticised current proposals to simplify certification systems, which risk treating farmers’ varieties as inferior. Instead, they advocate for regulatory systems based on equal recognition, but with rules adapted to the nature and diversity of farmers’ seed systems.

CSOs and POs remain very vigilant about the threat posed by UPOV to the seed system in African countries, whose governments are under constant pressure from agribusiness lobbies. This requirement is non-negotiable, as Jean-Paul Sikeli of COPAGEN put it: “We cannot allow the UPOV regime to destroy Africa’s genetic heritage. Our seed systems must protect diversity and farmers’ rights, not impose industrial uniformity.”

AFSA and its partner organisations call on CORAF, FAO and regional institutions to ensure that future processes fully include farmers’ organisations and civil society, to align strategies with the African Union’s new policy directions, and to strengthen peasant seed systems as the foundation of resilient African food systems.

“The future of seeds in Africa cannot be decided in rooms where farmers are absent,” added Mr Ndiaye. “If we want resilient food systems, farmers must be at the centre of policy and investment decisions.”

AFSA and allied organisations remain ready to engage constructively with regional institutions to develop inclusive, farmer-centred seed policies across Africa.

###

 See AFSA’s Position Statement here.

Media contacts:

Famara Diedhiou, Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) famara.diedhiou@afsafrica.org, WhatsApp +221 77 539 89 28

Jean Paul Sikeli, Coalition for the Protection of African Genetic Heritage (COPAGEN) sikelijeanpaul3@gmail.com, WhatsApp +225 05 92 50 06

We, the over 80 delegates from Kenya, Uganda and Malawi, including educators, school administrators, entrepreneurs, researchers, civil society organisations, development partners, and policy actors, convened in Lilongwe, Malawi, on 22nd January 2026, to deliberate on ‘Agroecology-based School and College Food Procurement Systems in East and Southern Africa’

WE THANK the Government and People of Malawi for the warm welcome and support we have received during this event. We also appreciate the International Development Research centre of the Canadian government and their partners for making this event possible, and urge them to continue supporting the development of agroecology-based school meal programmes in Africa.

We RECOGNIZE that school meal programmes across our three countries play a critical role in advancing nutrition, education, gender equality, social protection and local economic development, particularly for children from marginalized and food-insecure households. We further acknowledge that these programmes operate within complex and evolving contexts, shaped by climate change, rising food prices, environmental degradation, policy gaps, and structural inequalities.

We note that:

1. Malawi is implementing multi stakeholder school meals system, while confronting constraints related to agricultural productivity, procurement systems, and institutional coherence
2. Uganda relies largely on community- and parent-led school feeding arrangements, in the absence of a comprehensive national policy, resulting in uneven access, nutritional disparities, and heavy burdens on households.
3. Kenya has articulated strong policy ambitions through its National School Meals and Nutrition Strategy and emerging agroecology frameworks, yet continues to face challenges related to funding stability, climate shocks, and farmer–school coordination.

Across all three countries, we recognize that women, youth, and other marginalized groups remain central to food production and preparation, yet continue to be underrepresented in decision-making and benefit-sharing within school food systems.

Guided by the principles of agroecology, food sovereignty, participatory action research (PAR), and gender equality and social inclusion (GESI), we affirm that school meal programmes are strategic leverage points for transforming local food systems, strengthening resilience, and advancing social justice across Africa.

OUR SHARED REGIONAL VISION

We collectively envision school and college meal systems in Malawi, Uganda and Kenya that are:

1. Agroecology-based, environmentally sustainable, and climate-resilient
2. Home-grown and territorially embedded, prioritizing local producers and local markets
3. Inclusive and gender-transformative, ensuring equitable participation and benefits
4. Educationally integrated, linking food, learning, culture, and livelihoods
5. Institutionally supported, through coherent policies, adequate financing, and accountable governance

COMMITMENT

1. We affirm agroecology as a scientific, practical, cultural, and political approach that supports biodiversity, nutrition, climate adaptation, and community agency. We commit to:

• Advancing agroecological production as a preferred foundation for school and college food supply
• Promoting diversified, indigenous, and culturally appropriate foods across menus
• Integrating school gardens, food forests, and Integrated Land Use Design (ILUD) as learning and food production spaces in all three countries

2. We recognize that sustainable school feeding depends on short, transparent, equitable, sustainable and inclusive supply chains. We therefore commit to:

• Strengthening direct linkages between schools, smallholder farmers, cooperatives, aggregators, and territorial markets in Kenya, Uganda and Malawi
• Supporting procurement mechanisms that are flexible enough to accommodate small-scale, seasonal, and agroecological production
• Reducing over-reliance on imported or conventionally produced foods while safeguarding food quality, safety, and reliability.

3. We acknowledge that unequal power relations continue to shape access, participation, and benefits within school feeding value chains. We commit to:

• Ensuring women’s leadership and decision-making power in procurement committees, producer organisations, and school governance structures
• Creating meaningful opportunities for youth employment, entrepreneurship, and skills development across the value chain
• Applying an intersectional GESI lens that recognizes how gender, age, disability, poverty, and geography interact to shape exclusion

4. We recognize the role of producers, entrepreneurs, processors, traders, caterers, and service providers in making school feeding systems viable. We commit to:

• Supporting agroecology-aligned enterprises
• Promoting appropriate technologies for storage, processing, clean cooking, and post-harvest loss reduction

5. We reaffirm the value of participatory, action-oriented research in generating locally relevant solutions. We commit to:

• Co-producing knowledge with schools, farmers, communities, and policymakers across the three countries
• Using evidence to refine models, inform policy dialogue, and guide scaling strategies
• Ensuring that research outputs are accessible, context-sensitive, and usable by all stakeholders.

6. We recognize that agroecology-based school feeding requires enabling policy and institutional environments. We commit to:

• Advocating for integration of agroecology into school feeding programmes in Malawi, Uganda & Kenya
• Strengthening coordination among the actors involved in school feeding programmes
• Promoting transparent, accountable, and participatory governance of school feeding systems.

CALL TO ACTION

We call upon:

1. Governments of Kenya, Uganda and Malawi to provide sustained political, policy, institutions and financial support for agroecology-based home-grown school feeding
2. Farmers and producer organisations to organize collectively and engage proactively with schools
3. Civil society organisations to facilitate inclusion, capacity building, and policy advocacy
4. Researchers to facilitate the generation of data that support evidence based design of agroecology-based school feeding models
5. Development partners to support long-term, locally grounded, and gender-transformative food system transition.

Done on 22nd January 2026, Lilongwe, Malawi

IAWP

In nearly every country on earth, waste pickers are active in the recovery of materials for reuse and recycling, with great benefit to human and environmental health.  Globally, we are responsible for handling 60% of the plastics collected for recycling, diverting materials that would otherwise be burned in uncontrolled fire (Velis, 2022), and filling critical gaps and cost savings across waste management systems.  Furthermore, our livelihoods are both dependent on, and victims of the culture of disposability. 

Our unpaid and underpaid labor feeds industrial profits and subsidizes the cost of a convenient society. We waste pickers are innovative in our ability to find uses and markets for things, including hard-to-recycle materials like textiles, which we recover for daily use, resale, mending, upcycling, washing, and redistribution, rag and rug-making, and recycling.

Through our work in recycling we contribute substantially to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. Tentative estimates suggest that each waste picker prevents the emission of approximately 44 tonnes of CO2eq each year, with waste pickers overall preventing between 7 and 17 percent of the 2.3 billion tonnes generated by the waste sector (Cook and Cass Talbott, forthcoming).

Our work is essential to our survival, and yet comes at a considerable cost to our health. We are exposed to dangerous chemicals, dust, sharps- even radiation- through our work, with waste management ranking among one of the world’s most dangerous occupations.  

As part of the working poor, we are more likely to live in low-income and informal settlements that lack adequate waste management services- compromising our right to a clean and healthy environment as we are forced to burn, bury, and open dump our waste. Meanwhile, a growing share of packaging is low-value, low-recyclability plastics with no incentive for collection (Tearfund 2019). We know very well the sight and smell of burning plastic and the threat of losing our jobs. 

In the face of these injustices, the International Alliance of Waste Pickers stands for the phasing out of single-use plastics and fast fashion. But for such a transition to be just, we must prioritize in the planning and implementation of the shift back towards reuse- and repair-based economies, including creating alternative pathways to work for workers engaged in the production, reuse, and recycling of single-use plastics and fast fashion.  

For this to be possible, we need adequate financial mechanisms that prioritize direct and predictable access through simplified application and approval processes (Tearfund and IAWP 2025), and supportive partnerships.  

Meanwhile, the phase-out of chemicals of concern, especially those associated with plastic waste and recycling (Brosché et al, 2025), is essential and urgent. In a rapidly changing, and fast digitalizing, world, we need recognition in public policy, but also cannot wait for it to protect us. The right and opportunity to organize and bargain collectively is therefore critical in order for us to gain protections to our health and safety.  

Brosché, s., et al. 2025. Plastics Poison the Workplace II: Chemical exposures to plastic waste and recycling workers in Kenya and Thailand. IPEN, Arnika, EARTH, and CEJAD. https://ipen.org/sites/default/files/documents/ipen-wristbands_report-kenya_thailand-final-3_small.pdf 

Cook and Cass Talbott. Forthcoming. Mitigating from the Margins: Waste Picker Impact on Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A quantitative appraisal and evaluation of the Waste Picker Greenhouse Gas Calculator (WPGGC).  WIEGO and the International Alliance of Waste Pickers.

Pew and SYSTEMIQ. 2022.Breaking the Plastic Wave: A Comprehensive Assessment of Pathways Towards Stopping Ocean Plastic Pollution. https://www.systemiq.earth/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/ BreakingThePlasticWave_MainReport.pdf

Tearfund. 2019. No Time to Waste. https://learn.tearfund.org/-/media/learn/resources/reports/2019-tearfund-consortium-no-time-to-waste-en.pdf 

Tearfund and IAWP. 2025. The plastics treaty finance mechanism: Lessons from other Multilateral Environmental Agreements regarding access for waste pickers and other grassroots groups

Velis, C.A., 2022. Plastic pollution global treaty to cover waste pickers and open burning? Waste Manage. Res. 40(1), 1-2.

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The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) invites applications from qualified and experienced facilitators to support the delivery of a Training of Trainers (ToT) on Integrating Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems into African Territorial Markets, scheduled for 18th–20th February 2026 in Entebbe, Uganda.

This Training of Trainers is part of AFSA’s African Agroecological Entrepreneurship (AAE) initiative and aims to strengthen the capacity of national partners and territorial market actors to advance agroecology-driven, inclusive, and resilient territorial market systems across Africa.

AFSA is seeking facilitators with strong experience in agroecology, sustainable food systems, territorial markets, participatory training, and adult learning methodologies. Applicants may apply to facilitate one or more sessions and must clearly indicate the specific session(s) of interest by title, demonstrating relevant prior experience aligned to those sessions.

Application Requirements

Interested applicants should submit:

• A signed cover letter indicating the session(s) of interest;
• A brief technical proposal (maximum 2 pages) outlining relevant experience and proposed facilitation approach;
• A Curriculum Vitae (CV);
• Two samples of relevant facilitation or training work (where applicable);
• A financial proposal indicating facilitation fees (USD), inclusive of all costs.

Submission Details

Applications should be submitted by email to afsa@afsafrica.org  no later than 6th February 2026 (5:00 pm EAT).

Email subject line:
Facilitator Application – Training of Trainers (ToT) on Integrating Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems into African Territorial Markets

For detailed information on the scope of work, session descriptions, and qualifications, applicants are encouraged to consult the full Terms of Reference.

Download Terms of Reference Here 

Make just transition a core obligation of the plastic treaty!

An Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) is the space where countries discuss and decide in the plenary, in this case about the plastic pollution problem to agree on a legal binding International treaty.

The International Alliance of Waste Pickers (IAWP), together with other organizations (NGO, foundations, etc.) share the convention space to try to influence the countries that have access and right to vote in the plenary.

This second day of the INC-2 in Paris, the plenary continued the debate over the INC’s rules of procedure, wanting to reverse precedent and agreed processes from other Multilateral Environmental Agreements by eliminating voting procedures.

The IAWP, together with  Just Transition Initiative, organized a side meeting [in a venue close to the UNESCO building, where the convention takes place] to discuss What must the treaty text contain to deliver a just transition?

We invited member states and observers to focus on what the treaty text must contain to deliver a just transition. The discussion benefitted from insights from the Governments of Kenya, South Africa, and Brazil, the International Labour Organization, and members of the International Alliance of Waste Pickers. The event was organized with the support of WWF, WIEGO, and Tearfund.

https://www.facebook.com/GlobalRec/videos/580285577556161/

(Choose photo https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1aLR2DvVJiaxiyMrQosDQQrIHMMjW46xc?usp=share_link)

 

Waste pickers at the heart of South Africa’s recycling economy

 

The event was opened by Tshilidzi Ligaraba, Chief Director, Integrated Waste Management (South Africa), who reiterated the importance of participation of all stakeholders in the process towards a just transition, including governments, international organizations, businesses, and waste pickers across the world. Ligaraba shared that waste pickers are recognized in South Africa’s national waste management strategy, which provides guidelines for municipalities to integrate waste pickers through separation at source initiatives, waste picker registration, and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). The guidelines are built on principles of recognition, respect, and meaningful engagement, emphasizing the need to build on existing networks for waste management and improving working conditions for the 60-90.000 waste pickers that are at the heart of South Africa’s recycling economy, said Ligaraba.

 

Just transition must be a core obligation of this treaty

 

Johnson Doe, president of Green Waste Pickers Cooperative and member of the International Alliance of Waste Pickers , provided insights into the challenges faced by waste pickers in Kpone dumpsite in Ghana, including the closure of dumpsites, the privatization of waste management, and the lack of inclusion by the government. Doe explained that circular economy policies tend to divert valuable recyclables from waste pickers and into the hands of private businesses, whilst plans are in place to close the landfill where Doe and his colleagues have been recovering waste for years, without a strategy to safeguard livelihoods. With entrepreneurial drive and in the pursuit of alternative livelihood opportunities, waste pickers began providing door-step collection to households in a nearby community lacking waste collection services and drafted a proposal for the municipality to be contracted for the same. Despite reducing the environmental and societal burden of mismanaged waste, the municipality required waste pickers to form a cooperative to be contracted for municipal waste collection.

 

However, nearly a year after its registration, the municipality has not yet contracted the association for doorstep waste collection. Johnson Doe highlighted the lack of participation of waste pickers in discussions around waste management in the country and the need for waste pickers to speak for themselves. A just transition includes legal recognition of the rights of waste pickers to maintain a role in the system, which must be mandatory and a core obligation of both national laws and in the plastic treaty, said Johnson, and argued that if a just transition is left as a voluntary measure, it will not happen for the majority of waste pickers around the world.

 

Ensuring that resources reach waste pickers

 

Ending plastic pollution is not just about the environment, but part of a sustainable development strategy to end poverty, stated Adalberto Maluf, Vice-minister of Environment, Brazil, and highlights that the integration of waste pickers across the value chain is a priority for the government. Maluf emphasized that the treaty should address how waste pickers can be empowered and fairly remunerated. Waste pickers are not getting a fair share of the resources, despite handling around 90% of waste in Brazil, says Maluf. He identified that there is a need to channel funding from the private sector through EPR and reverse logistics systems that ensures transparency, improved labour rights, and that funding goes directly to waste pickers and their cooperatives. He identified that global virgin plastic prices and standards for recycled content can severely disrupt local recycling markets and the income of waste pickers. To open importation of recyclable waste in Brazil, in the past years, has strongly impacted waste pickers by reducing the price of recyclables.

Maluf is hopeful that with new policies to control this situation by the new government, new recycling certificates, and the establishment of a global fund could contribute to channel resources to those who need it the most and hopes that Brazil’s 20 years of experience working on the integration of waste pickers can inspire other countries.

 

Providing mechanisms supporting a just transition across the value chain

 

Informal workers play an important role in recycling economies, said Ed Shepherd from Unilever. He argues for the treaty to provide mechanisms supporting a just transition across the value chain, including for waste pickers and informed by the workers themselves. Unilever has partnered with other companies in the Fair Circularity Initiative, which contains a set of principles for the engagement of the informal sector to reach broader objectives of higher levels of recycled content, better material qualities, and transparency across the value chain, as well as mitigating and preventing negative impacts on human rights while supporting livelihoods. On behalf of the Business Coalition, Shepherd voiced support for the just transition to be a core obligation of the treaty.

 

“Criteria for decent jobs, social security, social dialogue, and labour standards”

 

Social justice means different things to different people, said Yasuhiko Kamakura, International Labour Organisation (ILO), and elaborated that for ILO, social justice is embedded in the decent work agenda, including criteria for decent jobs, social security, social dialogue, and labour standards. These standards are part of ILOs fundamental human and labour standards, which member states are already committed to. This means that regardless of the treaty being ratified, members of the ILO must commit to ensuring decent work for everyone. A just transition in the context of a global treaty needs to be meaningful, beyond words on a paper, Kamakura argues, which demands implementation measures and core obligations.

 

“Waste pickers are the most important link in the value chain”

 

Soledad Mella, International Alliance of Waste Pickers and ANARCH (Chile), also called on delegations to make a just transition a core obligation of the treaty, protecting all the actors in the plastic value chain, particularly the 20 million waste pickers and other frontline communities whose social, labour and human rights are at risk. Acknowledging the difficult task of developing a plastic treaty, Soledad highlighted the need for recognizing waste pickers in the process of reducing plastic pollution for the treaty to have a global impact from environmental to humanitarian levels. Financial support, infrastructure, technology, education, training, and strengthening of organizations and cooperatives are essential aspects of ensuring a just transition for grassroot waste pickers, Soledad said. Further, Soledad explicitly called upon member states to empower waste pickers to expand reuse and repair systems, for waste picker organizations to be considered for municipal waste collection contracts, and to be clear that waste pickers are the most important link in the value chain. A just transition without waste pickers is garbage, she concludes, before the floor was opened for discussion.

 

“Just transition initiative”

 

During the discussions, the representatives from South Africa and Kenya reiterated their support of waste pickers through the just transition initiative. They indicated that a just transition should be a core obligation and suggested that guidelines for the just transition of waste pickers could be developed as a tool to support the implementation of National Action Plans (NAPs). Johnson Doe emphasized the importance of leaving no one behind in the transition towards reducing plastic pollution across the value chain, whilst Soledad Mella recognized the precarious working and living conditions amongst informal waste pickers and invited all workers to become part of the just transition movement.

 

Other meetings:

• Johnson Doe meeting with Ghana’s Ministry of environment.
• Severino Lima Jr (MNCR, Brazil) was present at ISWA side event. Adalberto Maluf, National Secretary of Environment of Brazil, highlighted the role and need for empowering waste pickers in Brazil, being a key priority for the current government. He mentioned this after he shared that the treaty is more than ending plastic pollution, that it is part of a sustainable development strategy and ending poverty. He shared that the Brazilian president spends Christmas with the waste picker cooperative every year, and pointed to Severino in the audience!
• Barbara at…

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Ahead of COP30, climate scientists called out governments for  retreating on emissions reduction measures in the face of a deepening climate emergency – and, with the 2025 budget, Canada’s government signalled its intent to do the same.

In a pre-COP30 brief, Canada’s Environment and Climate Change Minister Julie Dabrusin announced her government’s intent to “to advance international efforts to address climate change” on the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement. Yet, the same government has expressed ambivalence towards the Paris Agreement’s targets, with Mark Carney previously stating that he is more interested in “results rather than targets and investments rather than bans.” 

Given these inconsistent positions, how serious is the Canadian government really about addressing the climate crisis? What direction is the Carney government heading?

One of the biggest challenges of finding clarity in Canada’s climate policy is cutting through the technical minutiae that often obscures politics and policy. Behind the targets, agreements, policy papers, press conferences and, apparently, COP30 branded cruise ships, it is difficult for anyone to see what has actually been accomplished.

Under the Paris Agreement, Canada committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to a maximum of 440 megatonnes by 2030. The 2024 emissions data shows that Canada remains stalled at 694 megatonnes and is not on track to meet its target. This kind of failure appears to present two options for the Carney government: perform better or promise less. 

The new budget’s Climate Competitiveness Strategy cancels climate rules and initiatives, while cutting billions of dollars in planned program spending in favor of tax credits and corporate subsidies. What counts for climate competitiveness in this budget are tax credits for liquified natural gas (LNG) facilities and carbon capture schemes, totalling $325 million over the next five years.

Programs that were intended to either monitor pollution or store emissions to meet Canada’s Paris Agreement targets are all facing cuts as part of Carney’s austerity and investment plan.  Environment and Climate Change Canada is expected to take a $1.3 billion cut in annual program spending by 2030. The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada and the Canada Water Agency – federal regulators meant to safeguard the environment – are also facing cuts. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s $3 billion plan to plant two billion trees, a legacy program meant to build a potential carbon sink to help reduce future emissions, has also been scrapped by Carney’s budget. 

Carney has signalled that the levies polluters pay as part of the industrial carbon price, where the average industry pays the comparatively-low price of $8.40 per tonne of emissions, may not increase despite the commitment needed to meet Paris Agreement targets. Somehow, the federal government is also confident that the planned oil and gas emissions cap will “no longer be required” even though data from the Parliamentary Budget Officer stated clearly that, in the absence of the cap, “upstream oil and gas emissions will exceed the legal upper bound” by 2030.

Capping upstream emissions from production activities, i.e from the extraction of fossil fuels, without capping the actual volume of oil and gas going to market was always questionable. But now Carney’s budget is combining talk of real climate action with commitments to “maximise carbon value for money” and “protect the competitiveness of oil and gas.” Even if one understands this charitably, it would seem to preclude any plan to seriously reduce total emissions any further. One can have the cleanest oil extraction process in the world, but if the actual volume of fossil fuels getting burned remains constant or increases, say, in the interest of maximizing carbon value for money, it’s a rather moot point. Total emissions will still rise, the climate crisis will intensify and the poorest in the world will bear the brunt of the costs.

When Carney promised a budget of “sacrifice” he clearly did not mean a sacrifice for energy company owners. What this does mean, however, is sacrifice for Canadians in the form of cuts to programs, cuts to public sector jobs, and climate inaction.