Informal Ecosystems

This is a page on informal ecosystems.

Seed content

Philippines

Informal Ecosystem. Francis Capistrano first noticed the informal ecosystem in Quiapo when he asked technicians how they learned: “They would always say I’d learn on my own or someone taught me through apprenticeship. There also exists a form of hierarchy and a loose network of hackers where they know who’s good at what.” Francis also recounts that there is no notion of competition but more of cooperation — Or, as he says: “Coopetition.”

Source: AccLab Blog

Earlier into the pandemic, regulations for financial transfers were relaxed enabling the first batch of beneficiaries to be enrolled with partial KYC requirements for disbursement. While they were technically allowed to cash out within 90 days even without doing full KYC, beneficiaries reported incidents where official money-in-money-out (MIMOS) agents would not allow them to do so, limiting their options to access their money. This has also led some to access their cash through informal means, which admittedly led to mixed results regarding transaction fees. On the one hand, it raises the need to better streamline the cascading of information from MMO providers to their designated MIMOs. However, it also surfaces another signal on how social networks are leveraged as an accessible force to support transitions for technological adoption by filling in unanticipated gaps at the local level.Digital disbursements may increase efficiency and reduce transaction costs, but it is far more effective when a whole-of-society approach is taken

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Activities

Turkey

In this sense, the portfolio of ideas and actors that we have created during this process enabled us to map various solutions by different aspects which can lead us to various hypotheses and experiments. So, we mapped local and national level solutions regarding waste management into 3 categories: (i) Up-cycle recycle, mostly consists of NGOs and research institutions; (ii) Waste pickers: local & informal related with governmental bodies and associations; (iii) we mapped cleantech innovations in Turkey.

Source: AccLab Blog

Vietnam

From 2019, the Accelerator Lab (AccLab) in Viet Nam, which is also part of UNDP global network of 90 AccLabs, has been carrying a spirit of social innovation experiments. In Da Nang, the group had some typical environmental activities such as: Experimenting on building a model of friendly garbage classification in the Cam Le apartment complex; and Study on the informal waste collection ecosystem and the impact of COVID on bottles.

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Waste Collection

The informal sector is Viet Nam’s largest contributor towards recycling and reuse of waste in the entire country. Stories just like Ms. Hien’s are common and as one of the top five contributors to plastic waste entering the ocean, Viet Nam needs innovative ways to tackle waste pollution. The informal sector is an active, yet under-used, often misunderstood part of the waste value chain. Toward this end, our UNDP Accelerator Lab teamed up with Evergreen Labs, a solution-driven, project development organization to perform an in-depth study aiming to better understand the informal waste ecosystem with the hope to shed light on their roles and impact. Taking inspiration from Dietmar Offenhuber’s research uncovering Brazil's informal waste system through GPS data, we conducted two mapping exercises in Hoa Vang (rural district) and Ngu Hanh Son (urban district) as an experiment to gather ethnographic, geospatial and socio-economic data, ultimately help to unpack the nuanced of people working in this sector. During this research, 40 informal waste worker surveys were conducted, 9 routes tracked via GPS, and 39 coverage maps drawn across two districts in Da Nang. The aim was to tap into the collective intelligence of the waste workers guided by NESTA’s Collective Intelligence Playbook to shed light on the informal waste sector.The current waste streams, collection, and disposal mechanisms in Viet Nam involve various players from both the formal and informal sectors. Household waste is not source-separated, meaning recyclable waste is mixed with organic waste and other contaminants. Typically this waste is left on the curbside in front of businesses or households directly for collection or placed at a designated dumpsite (which can either be municipally managed or not).  The informal waste workers (IWWs) are at the front line of recovery and are often seen rummaging through waste to collect all tradeable items like cardboard, metal, and plastic bottles. Once their bike is full, they bring their waste to their nearest collection point, just like Ms. Hien’s, to do their daily trading. Collection centers then consolidate and trade with larger aggregators before the waste gets pre-processed and ready for recycling. This research not only confirmed this value chain but made some interesting discoveries along the way. 

Source: AccLab Blog

This excerpt is also potentially relevant to: Informal Sectors, Hybrid Models, Informal Waste Management