Building transformative capacity for adaptation planning and implementation that works for the urban poor: Insights from South Africa

Abstract

The intersecting challenges of urbanization, growing inequality, climate and environmental risk and economic sustainability require new modes of urban governance. Although the urban poor are increasingly recognized as needing to be part of climate adaptation planning and implementation, many governance arrangements fail to explicitly include them. In order to make climate governance more inclusive, transformative capacity is needed. Drawing on two case studies from different urban contexts in South Africa, this paper explores the nature of inclusive governance between local government and the urban poor and the extent to which this has contributed to transformative development trajectories. The findings suggest that inclusive governance will be strengthened when local government (1) recognizes the everyday reality of the urban poor and works with them to identify priorities for transformative change, (2) supports sustained intermediaries who are urban poor themselves and (3) draws on diverse modes of governance to find new ways to engage diverse actors and experiment with inclusive adaptation planning and practice. These practices will help to build transformative capacity that can envisage and enable new ways of governing urban risk and implementing adaptation that puts the poor, frequently most impacted by climate and disaster risk, at the centre.