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

approach to fostering resilience includes city to city learning in order to obtain ‘good practices’ through sharing knowledge and experiences [22]. Although Moodley [23] questions whether an international network of learning is effective where contexts and challenges are different among regions (such as southern African cities and those in the global North), he demon- strates how a structured learning process amongst cities that face similar developmental chal- lenges can help improve the quality of urban strategic planning. It is assumed that cities that are at an advanced stage in terms of adaptation planning can act as focal points for learning to cities that are engaging in adaptation planning [24]. However, Moodley [23] demonstrated the importance of partnerships rather than mentorship as shown in a USLG program that the southern African municipalities of eThekwini (Durban) in South Africa, Otijiwarongo in Namibia, Mzuzu in Malawi were involved in. Therefore, mutual learning and equal partner- ships through city networks can offer valuable lessons among cities in the continent and for promoting change using ‘early adopters’ such as the cities of Lagos and Durban [25]; [26], which have been identified as having made remarkable progress in terms of climate change adaptation [27]. In this paper we argue from the perspective that cities are connected, complex as well as vul- nerable entities, which can be regarded as urban ecosystems. We aim to contribute to the argu- ment on, and advocacy for, city to city learning. We center our discussion around the question

of how useful city exchanges are in facilitating learning from experience and good practices in urban ecosystems and contributing towards building resilience in southern Africa. We draw attention to how such learning can contribute towards developing the capacity of cities in order to build climate resilience. We anticipate that lessons and good practices are relevant for a broader set of urban ecosystems that are dealing with similar environmental, climatic, demo- graphic, institutional and developmental challenges, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. We frame our argument by: i) outlining an overview of the various urban ecosystem issues for four southern African cities, and ii) examining the learning from each city and how it can poten- tially be taken on board for resilience building by the cities concerned. Evolution of climate research Climate research has traditionally been conducted in siloed approaches with little to no link- ages between the science, policy and society; a characteristic which has repressed the applica- tion of science for addressing societal problems [28]; [29]; [30]. The discipline-specific focus and specialization—though important—cannot address the multi-faceted challenges in society or complexities involving multiple stakeholders and interconnected urban ecosystems. Tradi- tional approaches in climate sciences and the resilience discourse has seen climate information inappropriately regarded as a superior knowledge type [31] being developed, packaged and

communicated by ‘experts’ in mostly linear trajectories that involve climate ‘producers’ and ‘end users’ [32]. This approach fails to deal with the multiple stressor context and interconnec- ted, complex urban ecosystems. In addition, a host of information is ‘lost’ that helps to contextualize the environment of the end-user [33]. There is a need to move beyond linear approaches to communicating climate information to ensure closer alignment with end-user needs, based on a growing demand for more usable climate information as societies deal with its real and devastating cross-cutting impacts. There is a growing awareness that new ways of knowledge production and decision-making must move beyond disciplinary silos, and that approaches such as transdisciplinary research, and knowledge co-production may provide the means to do so [34]; [35]; [36]. Disciplinary silos compartmentalize knowledge and emphasize introverted specialization while transdisci- plinary research incorporates different actors, disciplines and knowledge bases from science City learning in southern Africa PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227915 January 24, 2020 3 / 25