Durban (eThekwini)
Leader Mayor Zandile GumedeDurban, also known as eThekwini Municipality, is one of the first cities to receive support from the C40 Cities Finance Facility. As many African cities rush to ensure that their infrastucture is resilient to the future effects of climate change, and capable of protecting their citizens, Durban is already a regional and global leader. This projects builds on the city's long-standing efforts to ensure that they can deliver high quality resilient infrastructure for all citizens regardless of age, gender, socio-economic status.
Durban, also known as eThekwini Municipality, is one of the first cities to receive support from the C40 Cities Finance Facility. As many African cities rush to ensure that their infrastucture is resilient to the future effects of climate change, and capable of protecting their citizens, Durban is already a regional and global leader. This projects builds on the city's long-standing efforts to ensure that they can deliver high quality resilient infrastructure for all citizens regardless of age, gender, socio-economic status.
- Project Scale Clearing and maintaining 4000-7000 km of watercourse and the installation of flood defence measures
- Population 3.8 million (2015) (Metro area 2.901 million)
- Total Reported GHG Emissions 28.2 MT CO2e per year
Following a successful application by Durban’s Environmental Planning and Climate Protection Department, the C40 Cities Finance Facility (CFF) has offered to support Durban to develop a business case to self-fund community-based management of thousands of kilometres of its watercourses with the ultimate goal of reducing the city’s vulnerability to extreme rainfall events.
The City of Durban’s Sihlanzimvelo Programme will help Durban’s infrastructure to cope with the increase in storms and heavy showers caused by climate change, significantly reducing the severity of flooding and damage to municipal and residential infrastructure. The initiative will provide multiple co-benefits such as solid waste and alien invasive plant reduction, improvement of its biodiversity by restoring the city’s indigenous vegetation as well as long-term employment opportunities. The project promises to significantly improve the lives of Durban communities.
Durban places the city’s most vulnerable and poor at the centre of its climate change response by providing employment opportunities through the rehabilitation of its natural systems: we call it Community Ecosystem-based Adaptation. With the help of the C40 Cities Finance Facility, we hope to build the business case for the city to self-finance its climate change work, through the Sihlanzimvelo Programme
Current watercourses cleared under the Sihlanzimvelo initative
Planned watercourses cleared under the expanded Sihlanzimvelo initative
The project is conceptualised around the City’s waterways providing ecosystem services analogous to that provided by water-related built infrastructure. The scheme uses community co-operatives to manage small stretches of streams, ensuring coverage of the whole network and empowering and employing local communities, utilising a pool of residents.
The project seeks to implement, at a city-wide scale, the Sihlanzimvelo Programme, which is currently being piloted in two areas of the city. The CFF and the project organisers are hoping that, should this approach prove to be successful, it will provide a suitable model for African river systems management.
The CFF assistance will include assessments of the Sihlanzimvelo pilot to understand and model the economic and social benefits of scaling up the project. This will provide a basis for shifting Durban’s budget allocations towards funding flood preventive measures such as the Sihlanzimvelo Programme instead of reactive fixes and clean-up operations. In addition, a private-sector engagement strategy will be developed to support the City of Durban in attracting local financing partners for the project.