Скачать или смотреть Webinar: The case for hybrid governance

The webinar is presented by Associate Professor Gina Ziervogel from UCT's department of Environmental and Geographical Science and the African Climate and Development Initiative.

In this webinar, Gina talks about research she has done on inclusive governance and empowering the urban poor to adapt to climate variability. She argues that for the urban poor to adapt to climate risk, inclusive governance is necessary. When city officials and the urban poor collaboratively govern environmental risk, transformative capacity can be strengthened. To achieve inclusive governance, three components are needed: 1) a longer-term transformation vision, 2) a cross-scalar response to climate adaptation that includes both city level and location-specific institutions and actors and 3) acknowledgement of the distribution of power between local government officials and the urban poor. This approach, that includes the urban poor as central actors in the development of adaptation responses, places non-state actors squarely in the decision making and implementation space. This is urgently needed to underpin transformation. Drawing on two cases from different urban contexts in South Africa, Gina explores the extent of inclusive governance in the everyday practice of responding to climate variability at the interface of local government and the urban poor. Case one explores how a community leader in Green Park informal settlement bypassed formal governance procedures to secure the construction of gravel platforms in his settlement to reduce local flood risk. Case two illustrates how relationships between local government officials and the urban poor were transformed through a youth development programme that began through a collaborative process of developing a municipal climate change adaptation plan. The findings suggest that leaders among the urban poor are central to building relationships across scales and initiating transformation at the local level. Given the complex nature of cities, inclusive governance is necessary to embrace the messiness and multiple perspectives of transformation, particularly where informality and inequality are part of daily life.