From agenda-setting to implementation - the role of multi-sectoral partnerships in addressing urban climate risks

Multi-sectoral partnerships (MSPs) form an increasingly popular and important part of the global climate and disaster risk governance landscape, but literature offers little critical investigation of this phenomenon. In particular it remains unclear how MSPs can support the transition from agenda-setting to implementation in response to multiple current and future pressures threatening the resilience of cities. Through the lens of the London Climate Change Partnership (LCCP) and drawing from other MSP examples, this paper investigates the scope for MSPs to enhance climate adaptation in an urban context. Our paper has two main aims: to expand understanding of the role of MSPs in the adaptation decision process in the context of the wider governance literature, and to shed some light on the complexities of transitioning through that process. To clarify the role of a MSP we propose a distinction between ‘first generation’ and ‘second generation’ MSPs, illustrating the progression from agenda-setting to implementation: ‘first generation’ MSPs are focused on agenda-setting and knowledge sharing in order to support decision-makers, while ‘second generation’ partnerships are aimed at implementing solutions. We consider this distinction from the perspective of the individual members and their perceptions, motivations and expectations. We find that the dynamic nature of urban adaptation with a shifting focus from initial agenda setting towards the implementation of actions presents challenges for existing MSPs, particularly such long-established ones like the LCCP. Our investigation shows that ‘first generation’ MSPs can play important roles in agenda-setting, but finds little evidence of ‘second generation’ MSPs achieving implementation

The Durban Climate Change Strategy: Lessons learnt from the 2021 strategy review and implementation plan

Urban local governments are increasingly developing climate change adaptation plans. However, there is limited literature on climate change adaptation experiences of African cities, particularly with regard to moving from strategy development to implementation. This continues to hamper efforts to understand and guide city climate change actions on the continent. This article helps address this gap by providing critical insights into the opportunities and challenges experienced, and the solutions found in the process of developing and implementing the Durban Climate Change Strategy (DCCS) in the City of Durban, South Africa. The initial 2015 DCCS was reviewed in 2020/2021, and an analysis of the process and its outcomes provide useful focus areas that could guide other cities across the Global South and beyond for implementing climate change strategies. Based on these focus areas, the article demonstrates that there are considerable governance and other barriers to this process that span multiple scales, but also many opportunities such as good organisation, ongoing support across multiple departments and scales, and perseverance that can be harnessed. The findings have significant practical and policy implications for developing and implementing urban climate strategies and provide important conceptual insights for building transformative resilience in challenging governance contexts

Local authority responses to climate change in South Africa: The challenges of transboundary governance

Recent progress and innovation are testament to the willingness of municipal authorities to address climate change. However, urban regions worldwide exhibit an immense diversity of conditions, capabilities and responses to the challenges of changing climatic conditions. While separated by politico-administrative borders, adjacent municipalities within such regions are connected through biophysical, politico-economic, and social systems likely to be reconfigured under changing climatic/environmental conditions. Yet, to date, politico-administrative borders have largely determined the parameters of local government climate change adaptation strategies, with insufficient attention to the role of inter-municipal collaboration, especially between neighbouring rural, peri-urban and urban municipalities, for co-ordinating such policies and interventions. Within a multi-level governance framework, this paper considers the recent evolution of climate agendas in the eThekwini (formerly Durban City Council) metropolitan municipality and the adjacent Ugu (predominantly rural) district municipality on the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal province (KZN), South Africa, focusing particularly on cross-border collaboration within the greater city region. The challenges were investigated by means of 53 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with municipal, regional and local authority association staffin November 2009, March 2012, and August 2017. Our core argument is that weak inter-municipal collaboration, particularly between urban, peri-urban and rural areas within metropolitan and functional city regions, has been a significant impediment to realizing transformative adaptation within such regions. The experiences of these two contiguous yet contrasting municipalities represent a microcosm of the dramatic discontinuities and inequalities on all variables within adjacent urban metropolitan and rural contexts in South Africa and beyond. Despite promising recent signs, the challenges of inter-municipal collaborative action are therefore formidable

Tracing the water-energy-food nexus : description, theory and practice

The ‘nexus’ between water, energy and food (WEF) has gained increasing attention globally in research, business and policy spheres. We review the premise of recent initiatives framed around the nexus, examine the challenge of achieving the type of disciplinary boundary crossing promoted by the nexus agenda and consider how to operationalise what has to date been a largely paper exercise. The WEF nexus has been promoted through international meetings and calls for new research agendas. It is clear from the literature that many aims of nexus approaches pre-date the recent nexus agenda; these have encountered significant barriers to progress, including challenges to cross-disciplinary collaboration, complexity, political economy (often perceived to be under-represented in nexus research) and incompatibility of current institutional structures. Indeed, the ambitious aims of the nexus—the desire to capture multiple interdependencies across three major sectors, across disciplines and across scales—could become its downfall. However, greater recognition of interdependencies across state and non-state actors, more sophisticated modelling systems to assess and quantify WEF linkages and the sheer scale of WEF resource use globally, could create enough momentum to overcome historical barriers and establish nexus approaches as part of a wider repertoire of responses to global environmental change

'What kind of witchcraft is this?' Development, magic and spiritual ontologies

This collection represents a significant intervention in the space cohabited by witchcraft, spirit worlds, and development – a realm frequently marginalised by development practice. Through a diverse set of scholarly and methodological orientations, the contributions draw on contrasting case studies (spanning the local, national, and borderlands) to explore the current and possible future co-productions of development through various forms of spirituality. They do so with attention to the paradoxes, nuances, and complexities of these intersections. This introduction explores some of the cross-cutting themes arising from these complexities, including: scale; limitations of Euro-dominant conceptualisations of development; Othering of polytheistic, multi-theistic, and non-theistic spiritual ontologies; entanglements of spirituality, politics, and power; and co-productions of new forms of development. We argue that thinking through these various cross-cutting themes provides a multitude of possibilities for decolonising the development project

Africa’s urban risk and resilience

The literature on disaster risk and its reduction in Africa’s urban centres remains limited, despite evidence of disaster risks increasing with urban growth. This Special Issue brings together new synthetic reviews, detailed empirical case studies and practitioner and expert commentary to highlight the multiple ways in which risk and urban development are co-evolving in the region. It broadens understanding about the nature, scale and distribution of urban risks, examining relationships between everyday and disaster risks across scales. Papers in the Issue also interrogate the role of governance processes in driving risks, including strong recognition of the role of social institutions where formal governance structures are incomplete, and the underlying knowledge and power relationships that shape urban risk management. Potential learning from innovation is discussed in the light of the rise of resilience paradigms in urban development as well as the ongoing embedding of international agreements in local agendas that offer the potential to drive forward risk-sensitive urban development pathways

Gouvernance transfrontalière du changement climatique dans les régions semi-arides : cas d'étude du Sénégal

Department for International Development (DFiD

Rising to the Adaptation Challenge? Responding to Global Environmental Change in eThekwini and Ugu Municipalities, South Africa.

In response to rising concerns about adverse global environmental change (GEC), or climate change (CC) impacts, adaptation and mitigation measures are being widely implemented. However, much still needs to be understood about how these measures manifest in reality at various scales and the drivers and barriers to action in specific contexts. This thesis uses multiple social science research methods to investigate responses to GEC/CC, with a particular emphasis on adaptation and underlying development contexts, within the neighbouring Ugu and eThekwini local government districts in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa. The study’s focus on local authorities and communities is pertinent given that many adaptation and some mitigation actions are ultimately undertaken at local scales. The thesis comprises two main layers of analysis: first, a comparative analysis of Ugu and eThekwini municipalities’ GEC/CC responses and an investigation of the relationship between these municipalities regarding environmental and GEC agendas, and the likely effect of collaboration or lack thereof on GEC adaptation initiatives. Second, incorporating these municipal-scale findings, I explore understandings and responses to climate variability and change and their likely effects within several diverse local study sites across rural-urban continua within both municipalities. The results show that, despite their close proximity, the two municipalities have responded to GEC in very different ways and that municipal authorities, together with their respective diverse local populations, have divergent adaptive capacities. The research also reveals that horizontal inter-municipal collaboration and vertical collaboration between multiple government spheres is weak. The thesis suggests that strengthening such collaboration within a multi-level governance framework can facilitate effective adaptation and address current divergent municipal adaptive capacities. The thesis also reveals the importance for GEC measures to account for the diversity of understandings, responses and vulnerabilities to GEC amongst local populations, shaped by multiple climatic and non-climatic stresses, including cultural beliefs

Rising to the adaptation challenge? : responding to global environmental change in eThekwini and Ugu municipalities, South Africa

In response to rising concerns about adverse global environmental change (GEC), or climate change (CC) impacts, adaptation and mitigation measures are being widely implemented. However, much still needs to be understood about how these measures manifest in reality at various scales and the drivers and barriers to action in specific contexts. This thesis uses multiple social science research methods to investigate responses to GEC/CC, with a particular emphasis on adaptation and underlying development contexts, within the neighbouring Ugu and eThekwini local government districts in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa. The study's focus on local authorities and communities is pertinent given that many adaptation and some mitigation actions are ultimately undertaken at local scales. The thesis comprises two main layers of analysis: first, a comparative analysis of Ugu and eThekwini municipalities' GEC/CC responses and an investigation of the relationship between these municipalities regarding environmental and GEC agendas, and the likely effect of collaboration or lack thereof on GEC adaptation initiatives. Second, incorporating these municipal-scale findings, I explore understandings and responses to climate variability and change and their likely effects within several diverse local study sites across rural-urban continua within both municipalities. The results show that, despite their close proximity, the two municipalities have responded to GEC in very different ways and that municipal authorities, together with their respective diverse local populations, have divergent adaptive capacities. The research also reveals that horizontal inter-municipal collaboration and vertical collaboration between multiple government spheres is weak. The thesis suggests that strengthening such collaboration within a multi-level governance framework can facilitate effective adaptation and address current divergent municipal adaptive capacities. The thesis also reveals the importance for GEC measures to account for the diversity of understandings, responses and vulnerabilities to GEC amongst local populations, shaped by multiple climatic and non-climatic stresses, including cultural beliefs.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo