Latin America’s biodiversity fuels major environmental and poverty initiatives. Strong private-public partnerships, often community-led, drive impactful projects.

Latin America is one of the most biodiverse regions in the world and home to a wide range of natural resources, cultural identities, and traditions — where we see major initiatives focused on two of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), addressing the environment and poverty. And while private enterprises play an important role in pushing impactful projects forward, the region’s most impressive projects are characterized by strong private-public partnerships. These collaborations are often community-based or community-led, centering on local stakeholders and those directly affected by problems and solutions, empowering them to be effective project management leaders.

Let’s look at the projects transforming Latin America that are helping elevate our world.

Desierto Vestido Tarapacá’s Circular Fashion Show  For reusing discarded textiles with style  UN SDGs: 15, Life on Land; 8, Decent Work and Economic Growth  Chile

Fast fashion takes a heavy toll on the environment, as cheaply made garments are bought and discarded with alarming speed. Globally, 80-100 billion pieces of new clothing are produced every year, while 92 million tons of textiles are thrown away, taking up at least seven percent of landfill space worldwide. Discarded clothing, then, poses serious problems for making progress toward UN SDG 15: Life on Land. And because “fast” clothing is often produced in sub-optimal working conditions, the fashion industry creates challenges in the area of SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth. Most garment workers don’t earn a living wage and work conditions are dangerous.

Desierto Vestido Tarapacá tackles both challenges simultaneously, focusing on the massive clothing waste problem in Chile’s desert region. Tons of discarded clothing are dumped here annually, creating major environmental hazards, including chemical leaching and carbon emissions. In 2023, a group of college students launched the Circular Fashion Show as a project of their Desierto Vestido Tarapacá collective. The fashion show itself was the culmination of the project, which included an educational component, upcycling and reuse workshops where participants were taught how to create new clothing and accessories from textile waste — and an economic component, where participants were able to sell their designs, as well as gain visibility for future sales.

While the scale of the Circular Fashion Show was local, featuring nine designers whose work incorporated clothing discarded in the desert, the project was able to reach a broad audience thanks to its collaboration with the organizers of the Tarapacá Sustainability Festival, during which the fashion show was held. Despite a tight budget and limited project management experience, Desierto Vestido Tarapacá brought awareness to a serious issue and taught many Chileans about the circular economy.

Innovations for Poverty Action/Save The Children Project  For jump-starting migrants’ businesses  UN SDG: 1, End Poverty  Peru

Employment with a reliable income is one of the many challenges faced by migrants as they move between their country of origin and the country they hope to call home. The lack of a decent job that pays a living wage often causes a chain reaction of other seemingly insurmountable challenges, all of which are tied to other SDGs, including UN SDG 2: Zero Hunger and UN SDG 4: Quality Education. Because migrants are “just passing through” and almost always lack a permit to work in the transit country, they are forced to rely upon hand-out aid or illicit work. Or they were until Save The Children’s Innovations for Poverty Action project was introduced. Active in 20 countries, the organization launched a project in 2023 with a laser-focus on Peru, which has taken in more than 1.3 million of the 6 million Venezuelan refugees who have fled their country since 2022.

The Innovations for Poverty Action project worked directly with local decision makers “to identify needs, create evidence, and put evidence into action” to fight poverty among Venezuelan migrants through a comprehensive entrepreneurship and vocational training program, coupled with a cash grant. The grant’s purpose was to help 1,670 recipients jumpstart an independent business, the success of which was measured by variables that included improvements in income, food security, and health.

The project focused on conducting research across the life of the intervention. Researchers accompanied the implementation of the project, conducting surveys during and after the project to assess quantitative outcomes. The long-term goal is to use the findings in other areas and with other migrant groups by developing a set of best practices informed by the Venezuelan migrants’ successes and challenges.

Sidewalk School  For providing comprehensive care to migrant families in transit  UN SDG: 4, Quality Education  Mexico

The International Organization for Migration reports that 3.6 percent of the global population is migrating at any given moment, and the annual average has increased every year for the past five years. Families comprise a large proportion of migrants; 36 million of the 281 million people on the move are children. Migration is usually profoundly disruptive to a child’s education, and solutions are often difficult to implement because of transience, language issues, and the lack of available physical infrastructure in existing programs that serve migrants in transit.

The Sidewalk School, a minority- and volunteer-led organization, was founded by Felicia Rangel-Samponaro in 2019 to teach migrant students on the sidewalks of Matamoros, Mexico. In 2023, the organization launched the Kaleo Shelter project in the border city of Reynosa, Mexico. Sidewalk School’s Kaleo Shelter project seeks to be a model that fills the academic gap experienced by the many migrants who await entry to the United States at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Kaleo Shelter provides no-cost, short-term accommodations, all funded by donors and grants, for migrant families who intend to seek asylum in the United States. Inside the shelter, families find a school, health clinic, a dining room where three meals are served daily, and round-the-clock Wi-Fi, which is essential for migrants to stay in touch with immigration updates and with their families. The shelter helps families find safety and support as they await admission to the United States — and shelter staff ensure children receive English, math, science, art, and physical education classes five days each week.

The Ocean Cleanup + Coldplay: “Moon Music”: Limited Edition Coldplay Album  For turning waste plastics into a mass appeal object  UN SDG: 14, Life Below Water  Guatemala

The world’s rivers pull garbage downstream and into oceans, creating trash gyres that grow by nearly 8.5 million tons every year. Plastic makes up most of that waste, and it’s devastating to marine ecosystems, causing both habitat and species loss. The Ocean Cleanup pioneered one effective strategy to confront this problem, intercepting waste at the river level, long before it reaches the ocean. To do this, it uses a vessel called the Interceptor, a conveyor belt-equipped barge that collects trash and then offloads it into an onshore dumpster. This intervention works, keeping trash out of the oceans. But once collected, where does the garbage go next? A project launched in 2023 with the internationally beloved rock band, Coldplay, is The Ocean Cleanup’s first attempt at addressing this issue.

Coldplay began partnering with The Ocean Cleanup in 2021, and the band supports the organization’s mission in various ways: providing funding for operations removing plastic from oceans and rivers, sponsoring Interceptor 005 in Malaysia (and the planned Interceptor 020 in Indonesia), and sharing The Ocean Cleanup’s mission by showing footage of cleaning operations at their live shows. In 2023, the band deepened its commitment through a special clean-up initiative in Guatemala’s Río Las Vacas. The plastic collected from the cleanup is being used to create a limited-edition Coldplay album that will be available to the public in fall 2024.

Two questions drove the project: What do we do with waste once it’s collected from the ocean? And what can be salvaged and repurposed to decrease the burden on landfills and to extend the life of discarded objects? The project’s corporate recycling, processing, and manufacturing partners were key to finding the answer. After long periods of testing and collaboration, commercial partners created an album made of 70 percent PET river plastic, all removed from the Rio Las Vacas and passed through a traceable and sustainable supply chain.