With support “Expert fund for Municipal Partnerships worldwide” from GIZ, the German Corporation for International Cooperation, the Muncipality of Kouga, South Africa, was successful in conducting the in-house development of a climate strategy. In the process, the municipality was supported by an external development advisor which was funded by the Expert fund between 2021 and 2023. While it is sometimes challenging to bring together and activate all these players and at the same time gain political support, this approach enabled an integrated and therefore feasible strategy.
Climate change in general and the permanent provision of drinking water in particular are seen as key challenges in Kouga (South Africa), which put a strain on the dominant economic sectors of agriculture and tourism. These challenges are addressed within the Climate Partnership between Kouga and Ilsfeld (Germany), which was established in 2017 with a focus on water and energy.
There were workshops organized by the mayor’s office and the department for community services that works on the topics of environment and climate change. Furthermore, representatives from the departments for Infrastructure and Engineering, Integrated Development Planning, Disaster Management and Tourism took part. This was an important measure to gather valuable input from the perspectives of the various departments and to increase their ownership of the development process and, in the long term, its implementation.
Once the new climate strategy was completed, the working group made sure it was included in the Integrated Development Planning (IDP), a method for South African municipalities to plan future developments that is of relevance for the municipality’s budget.
The climate change strategy consists of three implementation lines. The first line focuses on mainstreaming climate change into the municipal management, the second line talks to responses to main climate change vulnerabilities and the third line lists short-term measures that were identified through the process.
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