What we are doing
African coastal cities, particularly informal settlements, face significant challenges in building climate resilience due to a lack of proactive, adaptive, and gender-responsive planning frameworks. Recent extreme flooding events in South Africa and Mozambique have highlighted the need for co-designed, transdisciplinary approaches that can improve the capacity of local governments to plan for, respond to, and recover from climate hazards, while existing reactive measures have proven less cost-efficient and effective in building long-term resilience.
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How we are tracking
Pathways to impact are clearly linked to the project aim, objectives, and research outputs, and relate closely to the Adaptation Research Alliance’s (ARA’s) Adaptation Research for Impact Principles. impact assessment is based on both quantifiable metrics and qualitative data. R4I needs and
activities are linked closely to the Capacity Strengthening Plan
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What we are achieving
The project team collaborates with local governments in each city to assess how urban coastal resilience, specifically in informal settlements, can be conceptualised and developed through a co-designed transdisciplinary framework that can ultimately be scaled to improve the proactive, adaptive and transformative capacities of (and within) coastal urban systems in Africa. Using Durban and Beira as case studies, the project aims to develop a Gender-responsive Coastal Cities Resilience Planning Framework led and owned by local governments. The research outputs will contribute to building proactive resilience in Beira and eThekwini Municipality’s pre-, during and post-event measures and long-term strategies, using the impetus and urgency instilled by the cities’ recent experiences with climate hazards. The co-designed Coastal Cities Resilience Planning Framework will inform the existing and planned municipal strategies around reliance such as the city's current early-warning systems. This framework will also be designed to inform other African coastal cities facing similar climate-related hazards to Durban and Beira. Proactive approaches with regards to extreme climate events are more cost-efficient than the observed reactive approaches and should enable other African coastal municipalities to plan for resilience more effectively. As ICLEI Africa supports African cities with technical assistance in adaptation planning through forums like the Covenant of Mayors in Sub-Saharan Africa (CoM SSA), they are well placed to support the scaling of the framework output across the region.
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