European Union / South African Presidential Climate Commission Peer-To-Peer Learning Exchange

Climate change poses increasing risks to cities, making it critical to develop urban landscapes with climate resilience built into design. There is an urgent need to strengthen the capacity of government officials, policy-makers, and implementers to engage complex climate-related information.

As part of addressing this need in South Africa, GroundTruth was engaged to undertake a ‘Climate Resilient Development Pathways’ approach within a European Union Presidential Climate Commission Peer-to-Peer Learning Exchange Project, aimed at building capacity of relevant people within eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal and Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality in the Eastern Cape. This formed part of an international series, “Developing Resilience for Cities Affected by Floods and Drought using the Framework for Climate-Resilient Development Pathways”.

The Climate-Resilient Development Pathways framework helps cities plan and action diverse developments in complex socio-ecological systems facing climate risks. These pathways are place-based, context-specific portfolios of interventions that steer development trajectories towards resilience and equity.

Using the Climate-Resilient Development Pathways framing, the purpose of the Learning Exchange Project was to:

1. Improve climate resilience practices amongst participants by strengthening participant capacities to engage with system complexity and navigate climate resilience decision-making;
2. Test the Climate-Resilient Development Pathways approach in a Learning Lab context; and
3. Explore the concept of, and need for, a Community of Practice, working towards development pathways that are more climate resilient, sustainable, and just.

The Learning Labs aimed to create space for participants to consider the drivers and impacts of climate-related events (e.g., floods or droughts), reflect on what processes caused current issues, consider climate change realities and impacts, identify and critically assess resilient, sustainable, equitable, and sensible development options, and test an initial cluster of development options.

Through the process of the Learning Labs, participants strengthened their capacities to engage with system complexity and navigate climate resilience decision-making. Participants learnt to assess intervention options against equity and justice criteria, engaging with the value of these goals.

Specific recommendations emerging the learning process included the need to a) prioritise interventions that reduce risk to multiple hazards, improve and strengthen governance and partnerships, maintain and restore ecological and built infrastructure, strengthen community-based early warning systems, b) invest in building the capacity of key actors in climate resilience, and c) consider the suitability of proposed interventions in the context of present and future climate and equity criteria.

The learning journey also indicated value in a climate resilience-focused Community of Practice to support priority capacity building requirements and connect relevant actors. The experience gained through this project provides a platform for further development, enhanced learning, and capacity building among relevant personnel for transformative climate action.