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On Tuesday, we held a workshop on the topic "Circular Economy in North Macedonia," where the findings from mapping the green and circular economy system in the country were presented and the challenges and opportunities for its development were discussed.
The SmartUp team, as part of the project “X-KIC Green & Circular Economy in the Western Balkans” funded by EIT Climate KIC, worked from February to May on mapping projects and initiatives in the field of circular economy, resulting in an open data set and visualizations that we believe will help system actors clearly identify weaknesses as well as opportunities to strengthen the system and close the loop of the circular economy.
The database and visualizations will soon be opened to the public, which is expected to continue the discussion with the aim of opening opportunities for more active collaboration.
Participants in the workshop included representatives from various sectors of local government, the private and civil sectors, academia, as well as representatives from international organisations and donors.
Through an unstructured discussion, in the first part participants shared their experiences and perspectives on three key questions:
- How much do we know about the circular economy system in the country? What statistics and databases do we have, and are they accessible to the public?
- Regarding policies, what guides us and to what extent do policies enable the development of a green and circular economy?
- How aware are system actors of the potential of the circular economy, and has there been any movement in recent years? (public, private, civil, and academia)
The second part was dedicated to discussing the presented findings and data, where participants had the opportunity to share their views on the most effective way to present and visualize the data, as well as possibilities to improve the data set to build a more comprehensive picture of the current state in this field. With the help of such data, it is expected to open opportunities for connecting different actors in the system and identifying needs for new initiatives.
The workshop, besides resulting in a collection of experiences and directions for action to support the development of the circular economy in North Macedonia, also helped connect some of the actors present.
