- DE |
- EN
Through the Connective Cities International Community of Practice, Mitrovica is receiving ideas on cooperation with the informal waste sector
Overview
Using a Connective Cities learning process, the municipality of Mitrovica in Kosovo drew up a roadmap to establish an umbrella organisation for the roughly 300 informal waste pickers in the city. This is designed to enable the waste pickers to improve their socio-economic situation and access to health care.
Initial Situation
There are about 300 informal waste pickers in Mitrovica. They are neither integrated into the formal municipal waste management system, nor are they organised in an association. There are also no institutions or civil society organisations that look after their concerns in the city.
The waste pickers often come from marginalised social groups, and are frequently excluded from the regular labour market due to discrimination.
The municipality has already concluded contracts with the informal waste collectors, but these contracts have not been honoured. This is because with official employment, part of the employee's income is deducted for social security. The waste pickers did not want to give up this not inconsiderable part of their income, and prefer their informal status.
Learning Experience
A Connective Cities dialogue event in Hamburg in December 2019 was devoted to the contribution of municipal waste management to the reduction and recycling of plastic waste.
Almost 40 participants from 13 cities in nine countries around the world attended. These included delegates from Mitrovica (Kosovo), Belo Horizonte (Brazil) and Quito (Ecuador). They exchanged views primarily on three topics:
- sustainable separate waste collection systems for households
- sustainable use of plastics
- avoidance of plastic packaging.
In a working group, participants consulted each other on the specific challenges they face, and the city of Mitrovica raised the problem of informal waste collectors for discussion. During the peer-to-peer consultation, the idea emerged of establishing an umbrella organisation to integrate waste pickers in Mitrovica.
In September and November 2020, Mitrovica had the opportunity to exchange ideas online with experts from Germany, Belo Horizonte in Brazil and Quito in Ecuador, and flesh these ideas out. Connective Cities had organised three online sessions for this purpose. First of all, Mitrovica formulated what external expertise the city would need in order to establish the umbrella organisation. Then Belo Horizonte presented its decades of experience in organising the informal waste sector. Finally, the delegates from Mitrovica presented the roadmap for their activities planned for 2021, and discussed these with their colleagues from the other municipalities.
Project Ideas
The city of Mitrovica in Kosovo wished to establish an umbrella organisation for informal waste pickers in the city. This is designed to offer them a platform on which to exchange ideas, articulate their concerns in a concerted way and campaign for better working conditions, as well as better protection when handling hazardous waste.
Moreover, the municipality would then have a focal point with which it could identify those issues for which both partners need to find joint solutions. In the long term, it is envisaged that the two partners would define a strategy for their cooperation.
Activities
To this end, the city planned the following steps:
- Establish a working group within the municipality that is responsible for the project and its implementation
- Present the idea to relevant stakeholders such as informal waste pickers, the private sector and the municipality
- Analyse the legal and administrative frameworks for such an umbrella organisation, as well as the points of intersection with existing municipal structures
- Prepare a draft constitution for the organisation, including structure, membership and mission
- Discuss this draft with the key actors
- Draw up a final plan for establishing the organisation, including roles and responsibilities, programme of action, training needs and funding options
- Prepare all legal steps for founding the organisation, and finally
- Found the umbrella organisation.
Perspective
The cooperation between the umbrella organisation and the municipality should increase trust on both sides, and provide the basis for developing a suitable strategy for recycling waste in the city.
The waste pickers will benefit from improved financial, social and economic working conditions, among other things by making themselves reliable partners for the private sector. In the long term, they will increase their job prospects on the formal labour market.
The city of Mitrovica expects that establishing the umbrella organisation will improve the public image of waste pickers.
The delegates from Belo Horizonte offered to continue advising their colleagues in Mitrovica, based on their extensive experience in the informal waste sector.
more information
Connective Cities Dialogue Event in Hamburg, Germany in December 2019
Published: 23/01/2023
Kontakt
Photos
Categories:
Municipal services
Solid waste management and recycling
Regions:
Europe
Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe
Kosovo
Mitrovica
