May 29, 2018
Every day in Accra, between 120 and 150 waste pickers collect and sort metals, plastics, and cardboard from the over 1,500 tons of waste that is dumped at the Kpone landfill, one of two major landfills in Ghana’s capital city.
While their work plays a vital role in helping to protect the environment, mechanisms have not been developed to adequately compensate these ‘informal recyclers’ for the services they provide. Earning an average of $40 per month, most of these waste pickers are unable to make ends meet.
To address this gap, a team of students from the MIT D-Lab and Ashesi’s D:Lab are working to create a tool that will not only increase the earnings of the waste pickers, but will also give them access to financial platforms to help grow their income.
“We joined because we were interested in financial inclusion,” said Dr. Gordon Adomdza, lead faculty at Ashesi’s D:Lab. “We think the waste pickers represent the bulk of hard working individuals in the informal sector with no interaction with the formal banking system. So we jumped on board to go alongside the MIT team to understand the financial management needs of the waste pickers.”
The project, themed The Ghana Waste Picker Financial Inclusion Program, is funded by the Danone Ecosystem Fund and MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI), and is in partnership with Fan Milk, WIEGO, and Environment 360.
Since January, the students have been working in Boston, Berekuso and the Kpone landfill in collaboration with the waste pickers. Through a series of workshops and interviews, their goal is to develop a solution that is tailored to the specific financial needs of the waste pickers.
“It’s been a very exciting project,” said Zoe Tagbota ‘20 of the Ashesi D:Lab. “We got to go into the field to understand how waste pickers actually operate, understand their importance to the society, and through design thinking, learn about the different opportunities available to them. “In addition, the exchange experience with the MIT team has also been exciting, taking advantage of the opportunity to learn about how they use their tools in projects they work on.”
With an estimated 1.8 billion individuals working in unregulated environments worldwide, the research and financial inclusion model, to be co-designed by the student teams and Accra waste pickers, will offer important insights into appropriate banking mechanisms for the informal labor force in low-income cities.
“Eventually, the Ashesi D:Lab hopes to work with relevant corporations and innovators as channel partners who will support the development and implementation of a mobile-money-based financial savings management tool that will also fulfill the needs of others in the informal sector,” said Dr. Adomdza.
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