City to city learning and knowledge exchange for climate resilience in southern Africa

RESEARCH ARTICLE City to city learning and knowledge exchange for climate resilience in southern Africa Mzime R. Ndebele-MurisaID1☯¤*, Chipo P. Mubaya2☯, Lulu PretoriusID3☯, Rudo Mamombe1‡, Kornelia Iipinge4‡, Wilma Nchito5, John K. Mfune4, Gilbert Siame5, Brenda Mwalukanga5 1 Department of Freshwater and Fishery Science, Chinhoyi University of Technology, Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe, 2 International Collaborations Office, Chinhoyi University of Technology, Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe, 3 School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Scottsville, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, 4 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia, 5 Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. ¤ Current address: START International, Washington DC, United States of America ‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work. * murisa.mzime@gmail.com Abstract Southern African cities face several challenges including management of rapid urbanization, rising populations, expanding informal settlements; adequate water and other service provi- sion, and a host of governance challenges. Climate change and variability add a compound- ing effect to this complex, multi stressor context. Addressing the complexity requires an understanding of urban ecosystems functioning and interactions amongst the built and natu- ral environment (climate) and human systems. In this paper we argue that learning is essen-

tial for cities to be resilient to current and future challenges. We profile the Future Resilience for African CiTies And Lands (FRACTAL) project which contributed towards climate resilient development by providing relevant climate information for decision-making at the city regional scale in southern Africa. Following FRACTAL’s city-to-city learning approach of sharing good practices, knowledge and experiences framed around transdisciplinary research, the study cities of Harare, Lusaka, Windhoek and Durban conducted city learning exchange visits between 2017 and 2018. We used a mixed methods approach to collect and analyze historical climate and hydrological data and current socio-economic and devel- opment data among the cities. A qualitative, in-depth, case study comparative analysis was used to identify similarities and differences as well as lessons drawn from the learning pro- cess during the city exchanges and these were complimented by desktop studies. Results showed water scarcity, large informal settlements, reliance on external water and energy sources, inadequate protection of ecologically sensitive resources and service provision as some of the common complications in the cities. Several lessons and transferable practices learnt from the cities included effective water conservation and waste management and the use of public-private partnerships in Windhoek, community engagements in Durban and Lusaka while lessons on decisive leadership in dealing with informal settlements emanated

from Harare’s limited informal settlements. Lastly, Durban’s Adaptation Charter and inte- grated climate planning provided lessons for biodiversity protection and mainstreaming PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227915 January 24, 2020 1 / 25 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Ndebele-Murisa MR, Mubaya CP, Pretorius L, Mamombe R, Iipinge K, Nchito W, et al. (2020) City to city learning and knowledge exchange for climate resilience in southern Africa. PLoS ONE 15(1): e0227915. https://doi.org/ 10.1371/journal.pone.0227915 Editor: Ashraf Dewan, Curtin University, AUSTRALIA Received: July 31, 2019 Accepted: January 2, 2020 Published: January 24, 2020 Copyright: © 2020 Ndebele-Murisa et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Funding: This study was funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) (2015-2019). The Authors acknowledge funding from START International’s Global Environmental Change (GEC) grants (2016-2017) also administered under FRACTAL while the data analyses and writing of this manuscript was funded