Publication: Unseen Green Jobs: A Study on Informal Waste Workers in Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR
Loading...
Date
2024-06-21
ISSN
Published
2024-06-21
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Municipal solid waste management is an increasingly important priority in Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR’s Capital City. Municipal solid waste management practices in Vientiane Capital are rapidly evolving, and various actors and stakeholders are providing key support to improve service coverage in collection, transportation, and disposal. A key group of actors driving waste recovery in Vientiane Capital is the informal waste workers (IWWs). The work of IWWs reduces the amount of waste that ends up in landfills and this helps to extend the lifetime of landfills and promotes a circular economy. In addition, the role of IWWs activities is evident in their contribution to filling the limited financial investment, infrastructure, and human resource gaps that local governments face in operating waste management. This study was conducted by the World Bank to support the Lao government develop a more comprehensive information-base and understanding of IWWs in Vientiane Capital. The primary objective of the study was to assess and analyze the working and livelihood conditions and waste recycling practices of the IWWs ecosystems in Vientiane Capital. The study was designed to enhance understanding of IWWs’ ecosystem, livelihoods, working conditions, and recycling practices in Vientiane Capital. Supported by the World Bank, it provides relevant findings and recommendations for the Lao government to develop evidence-based policies and investment in municipal solid waste management and social protection for IWWs. The study focused on IWWs in Vientiane Capital, the capital city of Laos. Five categories of IWWs were researched: (1) Informal Street Waste Pickers (ISWPs); informal waste pickers working at the KM32 landfill site (WP32s); (3) waste collectors; (4) waste truck drivers; and (5) junk shops.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2024. Unseen Green Jobs: A Study on Informal Waste Workers in Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/41754 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Municipal Management and Local Governance : A Service Delivery Perspective(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-03-31)The Norwegian Social Science Research Institute (FAFO) in conjunction with field based teams in five Middle East and North Africa (MNA) region countries worked under the guidance of the World Bank to organize, design and implement a Service Delivery Survey (SDS) spanning the period 2005-61. The SDS diagnostic examines the linkages between government policies and service delivery performance. The aim of the exercise was to provide an end-user perspective on potential ways of improving service quality, cost and outreach outcomes. It builds upon the institutional and policy review carried out in the MNA-8 countries by the World Bank in 2004 and uses the body of knowledge generated as a basis for refining the service delivery analysis in several ways. First, by surveying end-users it assesses their perception of the quality and coverage of services, improvements that they have noted, and the deficiencies that still exist. Second, it gauges their understanding of the service delivery mechanism, i.e. whether the users feel private sector providers, local governments, central government agencies or other providers are the preferred provider; if so, why; and whether there are general principles that can be derived from the user feedback. Third, it also considers the costs of provision under alternative arrangements, efficiency gains and inherent subsidies or losses that could be potentially averted under alternative institutional arrangements. Two methodologies were employed; focus group discussions complemented by Transect surveys, which, together, provide a window to the overall nature of service delivery in the selected Middle East countries. Certain central themes and concerns cutting across different services and countries emerge from these discussions. These are highlighted below. However, it should be noted that the purpose of implementing the SDS was not to generate definitive policy recommendations for each country. Samples sizes of cities (two per country) and within city (100 transect questionnaires and approximately 45 focus group discussion participants) hardly constitute a representative sample. Rather, the purpose of the SDS was to expose central government officials and city-level representatives and staff to cost-effective tools and techniques in consulting their constituents on key service delivery issues.Publication Inclusive Green Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean(Washington, DC, 2013-01)Argentina has expanded the use of its portion of the Parana-Paraguay waterways system for the transportation of soy and other bulk commodities through an innovative tolling system that self-finances the dredging and maintenance of the rivers. Brazil, in turn, is pursuing a 'green trucking' strategy to improve efficiency of its cargo haulage industry, reduce petroleum usage, and curb pollution from trucking. For the entire hemisphere, the expansion of the Panama Canal will bring post-Panama vessels and introduce greater scale economies in shipping. The following sections of this paper provide a more detailed review of the sectoral objectives, challenges, and way forward in making Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) growth greener and more inclusive. It looks back over the achievements of the demand sectors of urban development and infrastructure services, energy, urban transport, and water and sanitation, as well as natural resources and rural development since Rio 1992. It highlights the achievements in those areas, and the ability of those accomplishments to establish a robust path for the region to inclusive green growth.Publication Building Sustainability in an Urbanizing World : A Partnership Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-07)Cities are hubs of global change, and their global influence continues to grow. Cities contribute significantly to global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss. At the same time, cities experience impacts like climate change first and with greatest intensity. Further, cities are becoming leaders worldwide in efforts to address global environmental and social problems. Some of the most important smaller-scale agreements and partnerships emerging from Rio+20 (the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development) were initiated by or focused on cities. Even as the conference reinforced the increasing difficulty of reaching consensus on global challenges, it also saw smaller-scale agreements and partnerships emerge. Some of the most important "microagreements" focused on cities.Publication Environmental Performance Rating and Disclosure : China's Green-Watch Program(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2002-09)This paper describes a new incentive-based pollution control program in China in which the environmental performance of firms is rated and reported to the public. Firms are rated from best to worst using five colors-green, blue, yellow, red, and black-and the ratings are disseminated to the public through the media. The impact has been substantial, suggesting that public disclosure provides a significant incentive for firms to improve their environmental performance. The paper focuses on the experience of the first two disclosure programs, in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province and Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. Successful implementation of these programs at two very different levels of economic and institutional development suggests that public disclosure should be feasible in most of China. The Zhenjiang and Hohhot experiences have also shown that performance disclosure can significantly reduce pollution, even in settings where environmental nongovernmental organizations are not very active and there is no formal channel for public participation in environmental regulation.Publication Environmental Priorities and Poverty Reduction : A Country Environmental Analysis for Colombia(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007)The analysis of the cost of environmental degradation conducted as part of the country environmental analysis (CEA) shows that the most costly problems associated with environmental degradation are urban and indoor air pollution; inadequate water supply, sanitation, and hygiene; natural disasters (such as flooding and landslides); and land degradation. The burden of these costs falls most heavily on vulnerable segments of the population. To address these problems, this report identifies a number of cost-effective policy interventions that could be adopted in the short and medium terms to support sustainable development goals. In recent decades, considerable progress has been made in addressing the water and the forestry environmental agendas. The impact of environmental degradation on the most vulnerable groups suggests the need to increase emphasis on environmental health issues. However, the environmental management agenda has yet to catch up with this shift in priorities from watershed and forestry to environmental health problems because mechanisms in the current institutional structure to signal these changes are not yet in place. Improved monitoring and dissemination of information on environmental outcomes, assignment of accountability for environmental actions and outcomes, and involvement of a broad range of stakeholders are three important mechanisms to allow these signals to be picked up.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Adaptation of the Calculator of Social and Environmental Impacts from Small-Scale Gold Mining in the Amazon(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-11-09)Over the past decade, illegal gold extraction has increased significantly in the Amazon region, partly due to the high international prices of this mineral, the less stringent attitude of some countries in relation to the environment and the pursuit of immediate economic opportunities. Furthermore, this illicit activity is closely intertwined with other illegal practices, such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, and the trafficking of endangered species. This has repercussions not just for the region's ecological wealth, but also for the physical well-being of those safeguarding their lands and the health of communities living in proximity to the extraction zones due to the contamination of their rivers and, consequently, their primary sources of food, such as fish. Despite the international effort to recognize the socio-environmental repercussions of this activity, there are still gaps on this issue, mainly due to the economic losses that this activity represents.Publication The Critical Link(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-29)As the conduit between power demand and supply, the utilities that operate the world's transmission and distribution networks will be the critical link in the energy transition. Utilities will need to expand and modernize their networks to integrate variable renewable energy sources and meet growing demands for cleaner and more flexible power. According to the International Energy Association (IEA), the equivalent of the entire length of the world's grid networks will need to be added or refurbished by 2040 if countries are to achieve their energy and climate goals: As the off-takers of power generation, utilities need to be financially viable to enable the coming massive scale-up of investment in renewable energy projects and grid infrastructure. Utilities will also need to lead the way in providing access to electricity to the nearly 700 million people who still lack it today, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, utilities will need to serve consumers with ever-more varied and complex power needs and an increasing range of distributed generation options, such as rooftop solar. In short, power utilities will be the critical enablers of the energy transition and achieving universal access. This paper aims to place the need for sustainable utilities in lower-income countries (LICs) and middle-income countries (MICs) at the heart of the energy sector dialogue. The focus of this paper is on the utilities that manage power transmission or distribution grids.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Dominican Republic Poverty Assessment 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-11-08)In recent decades, economic growth in the Dominican Republic (DR) has been steady. However, growth has not occurred in such a way as to make the benefits widely and evenly available. In fact, although the DR economy grew faster than that of other LAC countries before the Covid-19 pandemic, its poverty rates and social outcomes remain broadly similar to them. This report seeks to explain this conundrum, as well as to expand the knowledge base to improve the effectiveness of ongoing poverty reduction policies in the DR. The Poverty Assessment draws primarily on new analytical work conducted in the DR, structured around four background notes on: (i) trends in monetary poverty and inequality, as well as the key drivers of those changes; (ii) nonmonetary poverty and its spatial dimensions; (iii) social assistance programs and their role in mitigating poverty; and (iv) climate change and its interaction with poverty. By helping to reduce the evidence gap in each of these areas, our analysis hopes to inform government policies and the national dialogue on poverty reduction. In addition, the note integrates existing analytical work and evidence produced inside and outside the Bank, including from its operations in the country.Publication Unlocking Blue Carbon Development(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-09-11)The purpose of this paper is to provide a practical framework to guide governments in catalyzing and scaling up public and private investment in Blue Carbon as part of their blue economy development. It does this by describing in detail a Blue Carbon Readiness Framework, a step-by-step, well-illustrated guide with simple checklists. Client countries can use the illustrations and checklists to determine their readiness to catalyze and scale up investment in blue carbon credit finance. The Blue Carbon Readiness Framework consists of three pillars: 1. Data and Analytics; 2. Policy and Institutions; 3. Finance.