Sustainable Urban Economic Development Programme
Capacitating Intermediary City Managers to
Champion Urban Climate Change Resilience
Intermediary cities in SubSaharan Africa have vulnerable urban systems that make their populations more susceptible to external shocks and stresses, including climate change. These cities lack the necessary infrastructure to reduce exposure to hazards or adapt to and respond to the direct impacts of climate change. As a result, populations in these cities are at a higher risk of being negatively affected by environmental challenges. To better understand the direct and indirect impacts of climate change on urban areas in Kenya, the UK Government funded Sustainable Urban Economic Development Programme (SUED) undertook a capacity needs assessment in 10 municipalities to identify their level of climate resilience at the municipal level, county institutional knowledge and the impact on their urban areas.
The Capacity needs assessment identified organisational, institutional, and individual gaps affecting the conceptualisation and implementation of climate change programmes and projects. Specifically, Municipalities lacked the technical knowledge and capacity to advocate for climate policy and legal framework development and implementation; mainstreaming climate change in their municipal planning; and fundraising for climate change programmes and projects. To assist with capacitating the leadership in the intermediary cities, SUED designed a climate financing training that was aimed at equipping the municipal leadership with the knowledge, skills, and tools necessary to enhance finance sustainable urban economic projects while ensuring that
Figure 1: The Kilifi County Team and the Lamu County Team engage during a break-out session discussing how they respectively prioritise climate resilience in their municipalities
climate resilience is mainstreamed. The training aimed at empowering municipalities to effectively plan, finance, implement, and manage projects that promote economic growth while considering climate change impacts and ensuring inclusive and sustainable development.
It was imperative that the municipal and county technical team gained the knowledge and skills to utilise a framework for planning, accessing, monitoring and evaluating as well as reporting on climate financing for municipal and county projects. In addition, the intermediary cities leaders needed to familiarise themselves with the existing climate and environmental policies at national and county level that they could then begin to proactively implement. In doing so, they would be able to develop bankable climate resilient proposals ensuring that they access financing for climate smart urban development projects.
SUED worked with the county and municipal leadership to select key staff who would receive the training on climate change to assist the intermediary city’s decision makers to prioritise future climate scenarios into their current decision making and climate proof their development projects. To preface the training the programme worked with the Counties and Municipalities to develop a climate financing framework for the municipalities that entailed analysing available sub-national climate financing frameworks available to determine which were the most replicable in the unique context of intermediary cities in Kenya. This resulted in the development of a municipal specific handbook. The handbook actively shows the municipal leadership how they can incorporate climate resilience and sustainable urban development in their governance and management structures.
It was key to not only train the municipalities on climate resilience in urban setting but to demonstrate to them how they could finance their sustainable urban economic development projects. With SUED support, the municipalities were able to identify the potential sources of financing urban projects including public, Private and international funding mechanisms. “SUED has not only worked closely with Kilifi County to bring in investors for critical climate-resilient value chain projects but is helping us at the leadership level to see how we can expand the work they've done and begin to integrate climate resilience in our planning" shared Joshua Mazeras Kilifi County’s Economic Advisor.
The programme took the municipal and county leadership team through broad based topics on climate resilience and planning to ensure that they gain a deeper understanding of climate change risks and vulnerabilities specific to their urban areas. This helped them determine how they would integrate climate resilience measures into their urban economic development projects. Some of the key climate-risks that they were currently facing were flooding, drought and extreme temperatures, the training helped them see how they would enhance the adaptative capacity of their communities. By providing them with methods in which they could employ various financing mechanisms, SUED has provided knowledge and tools that they will utilise to access various funding sources such as private-public partnerships, climate finance and green bonds enhancing their ability to attract investment and financial resources for their projects. “This training has opened our eyes to the available resources we can access to fund our climate-resilient projects to ensure that even as we develop our urban areas it’s done in a way that is resilient to future climate change”- Mr. Ahmed Mohamed Ali – Chief Officer Natural Resources, Lands, Physical Planning and Urban Development shared.
By having the training clustered between municipalities, SUED was keen to increase the collaboration and knowledge sharing among them. Municipalities with similar topography were
able to exchange the best practices that they’ve put in place to advance urban resilience as well as share what joint-initiatives they can collaborate on to achieve their sustainability goals. The training entailed a multi-approach that involves lecturing, group discussion, question and answer, and sharing of experiences and scenario planning. To ensure that there was active participation, the training widely utilised a participatory approach to understand the context of the counties and to guide them on how the concepts would be mainstreamed in their urban sustainable projects. In training policy and technical level officers from the county and municipality, SUED has ensured that the lessons learned will be integrated into the county and municipal plans. “We have learned how to work with our county leadership to ensure that we advance the linkages between climate resilience, economic development and urban systems in a way that ensures a sustainable future for our population” – Mr. Abduswamadu Abdalla Ali –Municipal Manager Lamu Municipality.