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

evidenced by Durban and Lusaka. Community engagement ensures better understanding of the context as the solutions are made together ‘with’ rather than ‘for’ the people on the ground and who are affected by the day to day challenges. There is, however, evidence of the need for continued capacity building and improvement of the model used to implement such approaches such as in Harare’s clean up campaigns. One other critical learning point is on decisive leadership in dealing with informal settlements as exemplified by Harare. Intolerance of informal settlements and upgrading of these settlements, are strategies that promise to address criminality and disease in the low-income areas of the cities, which other cities can emulate and implement to the extent possible. Lastly, as highlighted in Durban, development and approval of city strategies and action plans on climate change adaptation provide an opportunity for cities to integrate climate change in planning processes and cascade national policies to the city level for the benefit of city residents. Mainstreaming of climate change also directly or indirectly addresses other developmental challenges such as biodiversity loss and water security. We conclude that the evidence of efforts towards environmental protection, improved urban amenities and infrastructure and ultimately service delivery in the southern African cit- ies studied gives an indication that to a large extent, there is scope for these cities to learn from each other to build and develop resilience. Therefore, city to city learning provides a useful

platform for the exchange and uptake of ideas, practices and strategies to enhance the resil- ience of urban ecosystems particularly across regions such as southern Africa where similar socio-environmental issues are encountered. These lessons can certainly be useful for similar cities and regions. Supporting information S1 File. Windhoek-Lusaka city learning exchange questionnaire. (DOC) S2 File. Household questionnaire: Lusaka START GEC; flood occurrence, impacts and response at household level. (DOC) S3 File. Lusaka START GEC household questionnaire. (DOC) S4 File. Lusaka GEC key informants interview guide. (DOC) S5 File. Lusaka GEC focus group discussion guide. (DOC) S6 File. Harare GEC household questionnaire. (DOC) S7 File. Harare START GEC interview guide for the stakeholders. (DOC) S8 File. Agenda for FRACTAL Harare Team exchange visit, Windhoek, Namibia. (DOC) S9 File. Agenda for Harare FRACTAL Team exchange visit, Lusaka, Zambia. (DOC) City learning in southern Africa PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227915 January 24, 2020 20 / 25