What we are doing
Africa is known to be one of the most rapidly urbanising continents globally. It is anticipated that more than a quarter of the world’s fastest growing cities are in Africa, and regardless of policies, their urban populations will have tripled by 2050. This exponential growth, coupled with weak governance structures, limited resources, high levels of poverty and limited service delivery, put immense pressure on local and regional ecosystems, and increase the vulnerability of urban populations to climate change impacts. As such, resilient climate solutions increasingly need to use the experience and knowledge of people who will be most affected by climate change as a basis for planning responses. In cities, this requires not only drawing on insights from local authorities and national governments but also from urban residents (particularly the poor) and civil and social movement groups. Local government authorities have a central role in providing the enabling environment -both political and physical - within which climate change movement can make an impact. In towns and cities, the relationship between communities, these movements and local authorities is particularly critical for achieving transformational long-lasting climate change reform. This requires effective engagement both with decision makers as well as political agreements with elected representatives. The SEMCCA programme is designed to support the development of enabling conditions for revitalised civic and social participation, through designing and implementing tailored approaches, within a multi-level governance and social justice framework, in order to deliver ambitious, well-supported, scalable and replicable climate solutions.
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