Posts tagged with 'informal economy'
Before sunrise in Bogotá’s southern hills, the day’s first passengers are already on the move. By 4 a.m., a fleet of aging SUVs, locally known as carritos, begin climbing the steep, unpaved streets of Ciudad Bolívar. They weave through neighborhoods ...
Soweto, Johannesburg’s largest township, faces dual climate threats from flooding and extreme heat. These threats are compounded by the township’s soaring unemployment and an economy dominated by low-value and informal sectors. As a result, many residents have unpredictable livelihoods and ...
There is a pattern to how global crises unfold that receives far less attention than it deserves: A disruption originates somewhere in the architecture of global trade, energy or finance, travels through supply chains and shipping corridors, and eventually deposits ...
An ambitious reforestation program in Dire Dawa’s watershed is helping to restore hundreds of hectares of farmland and reduce flood risk, while providing 7,000 new jobs and economic opportunities, especially for women and young adults. Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, is known ...
When floods hit my hometown in Kenya last year, it was the poorest communities who suffered most. In Nairobi, where more than 3 million people live in vulnerable homes made of wood, sheet metal and concrete — many in low-lying ...
Africa’s cities are both among the most rapidly growing in the world and the most underserved by transport infrastructure. The African Development Bank estimates an annual infrastructure investment gap of $100 billion even as Africa’s urban population is projected to double by ...
While negotiations rage on, many world leaders have already left COP26 in Glasgow having said their piece about a low-carbon future for their country. No one can accuse them of being short on vision. But one thing is increasingly clear ...
Owusu lives with his wife and four children in the Tantra Hills neighborhood of Accra, Ghana, where he shares his residence with five other tenants and their families. The house has a toilet and electricity, but the costs for both ...
Incidents of building collapse are worryingly common in large African cities. One study counted 54 building collapse deaths and 122 injuries in Kampala, Uganda, between 2004 and 2008. Another identified 112 cases in Lagos, Nigeria, from 1978 to 2008. Cities in Ghana and Kenya, ...
Solid waste workers have been indispensable to protecting cities around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their heroic examples, from India to Vietnam to Latin America, have helped cities keep moving. But a critical alignment of factors is making their ...
Their goal is an ambitious one: make the world more prosperous by transitioning it from a linear economy that only works from inputs to outputs to a circular economy that loops both together. Instead of designing clothing to be cast ...
The COVID-19 crisis has shown how deep inequalities make society as a whole more vulnerable – providing important lessons for building resilience in an era of climate change. The people most exposed to the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic ...
Inequality is shaping how people are experiencing COVID-19 in cities to a startling degree. The vulnerability of the urban poor is striking everywhere, but the divide is more visible in some places than others. This is where I live on ...
Warwick Junction is a finalist for the WRI Ross Prize for Cities. Warwick Junction’s maze of stalls, arches and bridges can elicit wonder in any first-time visitor to South Africa’s largest marketplace. The area’s nine distinct markets are wedged between ...
Illegal. Criminal. A drag on the economy. These are just a few of the derisive labels that beleaguer urban informal workers, says Martha Chen, co-founder of and senior advisor to Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing. Informal workers – ...
