Report on the Policy Environment for Informal Urban Waste
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WIEGO REPORT ON THE POLICY ENVIRONMENT OF INFORMAL URBAN WASTE PICKERS AND ARTISANAL MINE WORKERS IN COLOMBIA Adriana Ruiz-Restrepo Shailly Barnes October 2010 THIS WIEGO REPORT WAS PREPARED BY: rra (Public Law + Social Innovation) attorneys & consultants Ms. Adriana Ruiz-Restrepo ( Team Coordination & Lead Researcher) Ms. Shailly Barnes ( Senior Researcher ) Mr. Sebastian Torres ( Research Assistant ) Mr. Camilo Barrera ( Research Assistant ) The authors would like to express their gratitude to those who, in the field, through their life stories or through their practitioner knowledge and information in Cali, Bogota and New York made this report possible. Our gratitude extends to colleagues in New Delhi, Pune, Ahmedebad, Patna, Bangalore, Cairo, Buenos Aires, and Belo Horizonte who have allowed us to further our comparative understanding of law, policy and poverty in the global south. Our sincere gratitude to Ms. Marty Chen, Ms. Chris Bonner and the WIEGO network, for their trust and support, but especially for their important contribution to development and justice through research and advocacy efforts aimed at building a better global understanding of the informal working poor. Please cite as: “RUIZ-RESTREPO Adriana, BARNES Shailly, WIEGO Report on the Policy Environment of Informal Urban Waste Pickers and Rural Artisanal Mine Workers In Colombia .” 2 “Virtually all policies affect the informal Economy. In the past, interested policy makers have advocated some mix of the following policies for those who work in the informal economy: social policies to improve their health and education; infrastructure and services to improve their housing and living environment; microfinance and enterprise development services to increase the productivity of their enterprises; bureaucratic and legal changes to reduce the barriers—and related transaction costs—to registering their enterprises; and, more recently, property rights to give them the ability to transform their assets into liquid capital. Too few policy makers have considered how other areas of policies—economic policies, labour legislation, and social protection schemes—affect the informal economy. (…) Until recently, there was a widespread assumption that mainstream economic policies do not and cannot reach the informal economy. (…) Clearly, a reappraisal of the impact of existing economic policies and the need for supportive economic policies is called for. This is because economic policies impact the process of redistribution between the formal and informal economy. Policy analysis needs to determine whether the informal economy shares in benefits from government expenditure and procurement policies.” A Policy Response to the Informal Economy WIEGO Brochure, Cambridge MA 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................. 4 ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................................................... 7 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................................... 8 1. AUTHORS’ CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR THIS WIEGO REPORT ................................... 13 1.1. SURVIVING POVERTY IN THE INFORMAL ECONOMY ............................................................................................ 14 1.1.1. POVERTY AS A CONSEQUENCE OF BAD LAW AND NEGLIGENT POLICY MAKING ..................................................................... 14 1.1.2. THE INFORMAL ECONOMY REALM ........................................................................................................................................................ 17 1.1.3. OWN ACCOUNT WORKERS: AT THE CROSSROADS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND LABOR RIGHTS .................................... 22 1.1.4. COLOMBIA, POVERTY AND THE INFORMAL ECONOMY ................................................................................................................... 26 1.2. MAIN CHALLENGES FOR INCLUSIVE POLICY MAKING ........................................................................................... 30 1.2.1. WOMEN .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 30 1.2.2. CHILDREN ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 33 1.2.3. ETHNOCULTURAL MINORITIES OF INDIGENOUS AND AFRO-DESCENDANT PEOPLES ........................................................... 35 1.2.4. THE SOCIAL PROTECTION ISSUE .............................................................................................................................................................. 37 1.2.5. DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE FOR INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT ...................................................................................................... 39 1.3. INTERNATIONAL AGENDAS ON THE INFORMALITY OF POVERTY-TRAPPED WORKERS ........................................... 40 1.3.1. THE DECENT WORK AGENDA ................................................................................................................................................................... 40 1.3.2. THE LEGAL EMPOWERMENT OF THE POOR AGENDA ...................................................................................................................... 42 1.3.3. THE REVISED FIRST MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOAL ................................................................................................................ 42 2. URBAN AND INFORMAL WASTE RECYCLING WORKERS IN COLOMBIA ............................. 44 2.1. CONTEXT AND HISTORY OF WASTE MANAGEMENT ............................................................................................. 47 2.1.1. HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF WASTE MANAGEMENT SERVICE AND ECONOMY IN BOGOTA .................................................... 48 2.2. PUBLIC POLICY OF WASTE MANAGEMENT .......................................................................................................... 52 2.2.1. CONSTITUTIONAL UNDERSTANDING OF WASTE MANAGEMENT ................................................................................................ 52 2.2.2. LAW 142 OF 1994 ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 56 2.2.3. WASTE MANAGEMENT DECREES 1713 OF 2002 AND 1505 OF 2003 .......................................................................................... 58 2.2.4. LAW IN THE FIELD OR PUBLIC POLICY IMPLEMENTATION OF WASTE MANAGEMENT DECISIONS .................................... 65 2.2.5. THE NEED TO RECONCEPTUALIZE THE NOTION OF WASTE IN THE XXI CENTURY FOR SUSTAINABLE AND INCLUSIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH .......................................................................................................................... 68 2.3. INFORMAL WASTE RECYCLING WORKERS ........................................................................................................... 69 2.3.1. WASTE DUMP WASTE PICKERS AND STREET WASTE PICKERS ....................................................................................................... 70 2.3.2. WOMEN WASTE RECYCLING WORKERS ............................................................................................................................................... 71 2.3.3. CHILDREN IN WASTE RECYCLING WORK ............................................................................................................................................... 72 2.3.4. ELDERLY WASTE RECYCLING WORKERS ................................................................................................................................................ 73 2.3.5. ETHNOCULTURAL MINORITIES IN WASTE RECYCLING WORK ....................................................................................................... 74 2.3.6. SOCIAL PROTECTION .................................................................................................................................................................................. 74 2.4. TRADE CONTEXT OF WASTE PICKERS .................................................................................................................. 76 2.4.1. THE COLOMBIAN STATE. ........................................................................................................................................................................... 79 2.4.2. BUSINESS CORPORATIONS IN THE WASTE INDUSTRY ...................................................................................................................... 79 A. THE BUSINESS CONTRACT FOR THE COLLECTION AND TRANSPORT OF WASTE. .......................................................................... 79 B. THE BUSINESS CONTRACT FOR THE FINAL DISPOSAL OF WASTE ....................................................................................................... 81 2.4.3. AUTHORIZED ORGANIZATIONS UNDER LAW 142 OF 1994. ........................................................................................................... 83 WASTE PICKERS’ COOPERATIVES AND OTHER NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS AS AUTHORIZED ORGANIZATIONS ................. 83 2.4.4. WASTE RECYCLING BUSINESSES .............................................................................................................................................................