The San Felipe Neri Market as a Lab for Circular Economy in Panama

Innovation methods

Data sources

SDG(s)

Sustainable Development Goal(s)

2Zero hunger

11Sustainable cities and communities

Disclaimer:

Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.

Title

Please provide a name for your action learning plan.

Circular economy and participatory transformation in public markets

Challenge statement

Challenge type: If you are working on multiple challenges, please indicate if this is your "big bet" or "exploratory" challenge. Please note: we ask you to only submit a maximum of 3 challenges - 1x Big Bet, 2x Exploratory. Each challenge must be submitted individually.

BIG BET

Challenge statement: What is your challenge? (Please answer in specific terms: "Our challenge is that...”.)

Our challenge is the food waste generation in the San Felipe Neri Market of the barrio of Santa Ana.

Background: What is the history of your challenge? What is causing or driving it? Who is involved? How does the current situation look like? What undesired effects does it produce?

The amount of food waste generated daily at the San Felipe Neri Market are exorbitant, amounting to monthly estimates of approximately 6.8 tons that are discharged directly into the Cerro Patacón landfill, creating contamination environment. In turn, the incorrect final disposal of organic waste generated in municipal public markets causes food to be wasted, instead of being redistributed or transformed locally.

Quantitative evidence: What (official) data sources do you have on this challenge that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge? You can add text, a link, or a picture.

We have already conducted a 4 phased process. First, we conducted a waste characterization process for waste generated at the San Felipe Neri, together with the National Movement of Informal Waste Workers, where they measured an approximate weight of 2.5 tons on a single day, with 99% of it that could be redistributed or transformed - and more than half of it still apt for human consumption. On the other hand, in the barrios of Santa Ana, Chorrillo and Calidonia, there are families that do not have access to nutritious food.

Qualitative evidence: What weak signals have you recently spotted that characterizes its urgency? Please provide qualitative information that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge. You can add text, a link, or a picture.

As part of the interviews and workshops with market vendors and staff, they commented that almost all visitors of the market are not from Santa Ana - and that most of those visitors are actually from other countries, not Panamanian. "The ones that bring the money are usually foreigners." This has particular relevance considering that the San Felipe Neri Market was recently renovated, and vendors considered (at that time) that their sales were low due to low traffic of visitors. This led us to organize a community mapping together with a group of local leaders and organizations to identify what are those actors that limit or facilitate access to the market for people of Santa Ana and pedestrians of the area. We identified that the poor pedestrian infrastructure, waste overflowing the streets and the vast commercial landscape around the market are main determinants. In summary, the market is disconnected from its barrio and requires renewing its relevance for the present and the future. We can't talk about circular economy without putting people at the center of it.

Value proposition: What added value or unique value proposition is your Accelerator Lab bringing to solving this challenge? Why is it your Lab that needs to work on this challenge and not other actors within UNDP, other stakeholders in the country respectively? Why is it worth investing resources to this challenge?

This process began as part of the project "Environmental culture for Panama City from a grassroots and gender perspective" of UNDP Panama. This project was mostly focused on managing funds for the environmental management unit of the municipality, the approach of the Lab has been to do 'more with less' and generate a learning cycle to sense, explore and generate a portfolio of tactical interventions related to circular economy in public markets.

Short “tweet” summary: We would like to tweet what you are working on, can you summarize your challenge in a maximum of 280 characters?

What can public markets teach us about circular economy? Panama's AccLab is on a quest to co-design and learn through a portfolio of experiments how can we accelerate transitions for linear to circular approaches to managing food discards through participatory transformation.

Challenge classification

Partners

Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.

Please state the name of the Parter:

Municipal Markets Unit

What sector does our partner belong to?

Government (&related)

Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.

The Municipal Markets unit and team has been instrumental in this process and collaborated openly and with commitment in each phase. They have opened the doors of the market; help hold and organize meetings and owned activities and actions related to the portfolio of experiments.

Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?

Yes

Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.

Please state the name of the Parter:

Fundación Rescate de Alimentos

What sector does our partner belong to?

Civil Society

Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.

Fundación Rescate de Alimentos is composed of a network of chefs from Panama City that work together to rescue food that is still apt for human consumption to prepare meals to be redistributed with local CSOs, NGOs and community leaders in different locations across the country. We are currently working with them as part of the alliance for food rescue of the San Felipe Neri market. They are in the process of being conceded (by the municipality) a space within the restaurants section of the market, not to sell food, but to cook and redistribute in municipal kitchens.

Learning questions

Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?

What can we learn from a portfolio of integrated actions to impulse shifts from linear to a circular economy in public markets through participatory transformation?

To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?

Sense, Test

Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?

There is a portfolio of actions already designed that focus on proof of concept (Food rescue), prototyping (Recyclable's separation) and pilots (digitalization of the market offer), as well as the activation of the public space of the Markets Place. These interventions, combined, could generate a series of integrated learnings to understand how we could transition from linear to circular approaches to food (and other) waste.

Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?

One of the most repeated challenges that we hear from the system of actors related to circular economy is that the hardest and (arguably) most important element to reduce the amount of waste we generate is by understanding and nudging human/social behavior. These interventions aim to generate data and insights on how this portfolio of experiments could bring us closer to a more desirable state in terms of preparedness towards a circular economy.

Closing

Early leads to grow: Think about the possible grow phase for this challenge - who might benefit from your work on this challenge or who might be the champions in your country that you should inform or collaborate with early on to help you grow this challenge?

Our intention is to articulate this effort with the municipal network of public markets of Panama City, as well as other municipal market networks of the city. In addition, we are exchanging our learnings with the network, in particular Latin labs such as Perú, Ecuador and Uruguay to 'grow' our learnings together.

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