Fostering a Just Transition: Empowering Women and Marginalized Groups in Ethiopia’s Circular Economy
Ethiopia’s shift towards a circular economy offers significant opportunities for sustainable development and green job creation, yet it risks reinforcing existing inequalities if the most vulnerable workers are ignored. In Addis Ababa, women and marginalized groups form the backbone of the waste value chain, while often enduring hazardous conditions, income insecurity, and systemic exclusion from decision-making spaces. To address this critical gap, the GIZ NatuReS Programme under the Partnership for Circular Value Chains in Addis Ababa has partnered with Eco-Justice Ethiopia, a civil society organization dedicated to climate and environmental justice to implement the initiative “Fostering a Just Transition in Ethiopia’s Waste Circularity: Empowering Women and Marginalised Groups Through Circular Economy”. This initiative aimed to empower waste workers by embedding gender sensitivity and social inclusion directly into the sector’s operational and policy frameworks.
The intervention began with a comprehensive gap assessment, revealing that despite national commitments to gender equality, institutional practices within the waste sector remained largely gender blind. In response, a targeted, evidence-based 3-day participatory training was delivered to representatives from government institutions, private companies, SMEs, and NGOs. By utilizing local case studies and guiding participating organizations to develop concrete, institution-specific action plans, the training moved beyond theoretical concepts to practical application. This approach directly supported the NatuReS objective of increasing knowledge regarding the roles, rights, and needs of women and marginalized groups in just transition processes, ensuring stakeholders were fully equipped to drive meaningful change.
The true success of the initiative is evident in how participants have actively demonstrated and applied their newly acquired knowledge to transform their workplaces. A post-training assessment revealed that ten participating institutions fully implemented their tailored action plans, leading to tangible improvements such as revised employment contracts addressing gender-based violence, the distribution of occupational safety kits, and the establishment of separate facilities for women. The impact of this shift was echoed by the participants themselves:
Abebe Reda, Head of the Awareness Creation Unit at Yeka Woreda 09, noted that understanding inclusion as a fundamental human rights issue motivated his office to appoint two women to leadership positions within local waste collection associations.
Similarly, Elsabeth Tsegaye, a Senior Project Manager at Reach for Change Ethiopia, emphasized that applying a gender lens is now understood not as “extra work,” but as a necessary foundation for achieving real, community-wide social impact.
Ultimately, this initiative illustrates that a just transition in Ethiopia’s waste circularity is entirely achievable when inclusion is prioritized and actively managed. By fostering an environment where institutional commitments to gender equality are translated into concrete, everyday practices, the initiative has laid a strong foundation for long-term systemic change. Crucially, several organizations have already expressed concrete intentions to scale these inclusive efforts beyond the project’s duration through ongoing training and policy revisions. Continued collaboration among civil society, the private sector, and public institutions will remain vital to ensure that the emerging circular economy benefits everyone, particularly those who have historically been left behind.
To gain quicker insights into the interactive sessions and the transformative discussions that took place, we invite you to watch the YouTube video (here). The NatuReS programme extends a sincere appreciation to Eco-Justice Ethiopia for their dedicated partnership in championing an inclusive, just transition with in Ethiopia’s circular economy.