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The use of Community and Ecosystem Based Adaptation (CEBA) approaches provides locally based solutions that not only reduce climate change vulnerability, but also address the socioeconomic challenges faced by residents in most African cities (i.e. in developing green jobs and improving people’s livelihoods). While mitigation of climate change is considered most important at a global scale, adaptation to unavoidable climate change is of critical importance to African cities that are already experiencing climate change impacts.
EThekwini Municipality has adopted a ‘no regrets’ approach to its climate change adaptation work, which is based on CEBA. This is in order to ensure that projects are beneficial under a range of potential future climate change scenarios. The Environmental Planning and Climate Protection Department (EPCPD) in eThekwini Municipality initiated the Municipal Climate Protection Programme in 2004 and established the Climate Protection Branch in 2007. This led to the development of Municipal Adaptation Plans, each with a set of sector-specific adaptation actions for three high risk sectors, namely health, water and disaster management. The plans were superseded in 2015 with Council’s approval of the Durban Climate Change Strategy. The Strategy seeks to build on the gains made in a number of innovative and award- winning projects like the Buffelsdraai Landfill Site Community Reforestation Project, as well as a number of eThekwini Water and Sanitation and Durban Solid Waste-managed projects.
A strong focus on developing across-sector multi-organisational partnerships enabled the establishment of the uMngeni Ecological Infrastructure Partnership in 2014. The Partnership addresses the role of ecological infrastructure in increasing water security and adaptive capacity within the uMngeni catchment. The catchment approach has also been used to improve understanding of the requirements for fine scale adaptation
10 DURBAN CLIMATE CHANGE STRATEGY