Climate Change Resilience in Mamre (North Atlantis), Cape Town, South Africa

2010/06/20

Environmental Resource Management Department of the City of Cape Town in South Africa, has undertaken the “Mamre Ceiling Project”: a sustainable livelihoods project that aims to provide ceilings for approximately 200 RDP (South Africa’s Reconstruction and Development Programme) homes in Mamre, Cape Town. As a ceiling has a significant impact on a home’s temperature control, the project hopes to provide some insight into the effect of ceiling installations upon the livelihoods of local communities. In this regard ICLEI has partnered with the City of Cape Town in order to assess the impact of the newly installed ceilings.

Local government’s contribution to the fight against climate change, through increasing the resilience and sustainability of local communities, is being strengthened in the City of Cape Town.

‘The Mamre Ceiling Project’, driven by the Environmental Resource Management Department (ERMD) as part of the Danida Urban Environmental Management (UEM) Programme, began in the first week of May 2010. This sustainable livelihoods project is one of a number that are run by the City of Cape Town’s ERMD. The project aims to improve the living conditions of members of the local community and build upon poverty alleviation and climate resilience interventions through the installation of approximately 200 ceilings in RDP houses in Mamre, North Atlantis. The installations are set to be complete by the end of 2010.

In an effort to further understand the impact of ceiling installations upon the livelihoods of local community members, the City of Cape Town’s ERMD has partnered with ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability – Africa. These combined efforts will form part of a larger transboundary initiative by ICLEI Africa, entitled ‘Sub Saharan African Cities: A Five-City Network to Pioneer Climate Adaptation through Participatory Research and Local Action. An initiative funded jointly by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada, and the Department for International Development (DFID) through the Climate Change Adaptation in Africa (CCAA) research and capacity development program.

The overarching objective of this partnership is to assist with developing capacity and understanding toward addressing specific vulnerabilities associated with localised climate change impacts and the livelihoods of civil society.

It further aims to increase communication regarding climate change issues between local governments and their communities. It is hoped that this will lead to increased climate preparedness and will therefore directly benefit the local communities.

ICLEI – Africa held an information sharing workshop in the Mamre Community Hall on the evening of 9^th June 2010 to share with the community the involvement of ICLEI - Africa and the attended engagement and participation with the community for the duration of the project. The event was very successful with approximately 100 community members and four official representatives from the City of Cape Town in attendance.

The evening began with an overview presentation of what ICLEI – Africa is and how it fits into a global association working towards environmental sustainability. Lucinda Fairhurst, co-ordinator of the Climate Change Adaptation team, shared information of the project presenting the objectives, activities and attended outcomes. The sharing session was very well received enlightening their understanding of climate change and how it may impact upon their livelihoods.

At the end of the evening the community nominated 10 representatives to become leaders of phase one of the project, namely risk assessment. The representatives will participate in training and delivering a questionnaire to the rest of the committee members in order to collaborate findings on how the community is impacted by extreme weather events and what changes in climate have been felt at the local level. Read about the training workshop here »