Special thanks go to Joanne Green, Richard Gower, Astrid Schomaker, Paul Begley, Alex Lemille, Tim Scott, Carlo Delantar, Hillary Brown, Henry Saint Bris and Mari Pantsar for their comments on an earlier draft of the paper.
We are part of a growing network of organizations doing research and analysis on the circular economy in developing countries. We would like to thank stakeholders at UNDP, UNCTAD, UNFCCC, the European Commission, the World Bank, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Tearfund, the Institute of Development Studies, the World Economic Forum and Circle Economy for their interest in our work, for including us in their events and for their valuable feedback throughout this process.
We are very grateful for the insights of those who participated in our workshops on ‘Circular economy in developing countries’ held in Kolkata on 25 July 2017, New Delhi on 27 July 2017, Dar es Salaam on 31 August 2017 and New York on 18 September 2017. In particular, we would like to thank Jon Price, Joyashree Roy, Leena Srivastava and Gwamaka Kifukwe for their invaluable support and input. This briefing draws on more than 30 semi-structured interviews conducted by the authors between May and August 2017. We are very grateful for the insights of those who participated in those interviews.
A number of members of the Energy, Environment and Resources Department – both staff and interns – provided research and administrative support throughout the process: first and foremost, Ruth Quinn and Gemma Green, together with Thomas Ringheim and Elena Bignami. We are grateful to our editor, Jake Statham, for all of his feedback and support throughout the process.
Finally, the authors express their gratitude to the Rockefeller Foundation for its generous support of this ongoing research.