Innovation technologies for circular economies
As the RUNRES project enters its second phase of developing and now upscaling innovations for circular economies in the rural-urban nexus, private-public-partnerships will continue to play an important role.
The Flagship Project Enhancing Resilience in Food Systems seeks to directly contribute to food systems resilience by supporting decision-making in practice through stakeholder participation in case studies and academic education. The project was initiated in 2013 and is led by World Food System Center member Johan Six. Here are some of the latest updates and publications.
RUNRES Phase II
The RUNRES (Rural-Urban Nexus: Establishing a nutrient loop to improve city-region food system Resilience) team has successfully entered a second phase of the project. From 2023-2027, the team focuses on scaling up the successful innovations in four countries: Ethiopia, Rwanda, South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For this scaling up of innovations, the team will use three pathways: 1) The established private-public partnerships (PPPs) from phase I will continue their activities and enlarge them to get to full capacity of the innovations they piloted in phase I. 2) New PPPs will be initiated and will be further built up to replicate the innovations piloted in phase I; they will be helped by the PPPs established in phase I. 3) The project team will support other initiatives interested in our innovations by providing knowledge and sharing lessons learned.
For this phase, the Sustainable Agroecosystems Group welcomes postdoctoral researcher Dr. Sharon Migeri. Sharon obtained her doctoral degree in crop science at the University of KwaZulu Natal.
Leonhard Späth, Sharon Migeri, and Johan Six have also published an article in Rural 21 highlighting RUNRES innovation technologies entitled external page From innovation to upscaling – circular economy in the rural-urban nexus.
Including voices in research
A new publication by Melanie Surchat and colleagues explores the experiences of workers engaged in biowaste recycling in Rwanda, a circular economy leader in Africa, with a particular focus on the distinctions between the experiences of female and male workers. Using a photovoice methodology, the waste workers visually reported on the benefits and drawbacks of being involved in biowaste recycling. The study highlights that access to work improves workers’ relative well-being and that this type of circular economy can help create meaningful jobs.
Article: Surchat, M; et al. 2023. Texternal page he bad job brings the good one”: photovoice study with femaleand male waste workers in Rwanda.
Furthermore, Melanie Surchat successfully defended her doctoral thesis entitled "Gender-inclusive biowaste recycling: The example of Rwanda” in December 2023.
