When the ports of Mozambique come to a standstill, the whole country pays a price. In the city of Nacala on the eastern coast, new weather extremes are eroding shorelines and washing mud into the harbor, bringing all activity to a standstill.
“Climate change is now a reality. It’s not the past. It’s the present and the future,” said Momade Amade, an advisor to the city’s mayor.
When sediment gets washed from the bank into the port’s waters, days of operations are lost, amounting to astronomical volumes of wasted money. Business opportunities are squandered across the entire subcontinent, particularly for landlocked neighbors like Zimbabwe and Zambia.
Moreover, unregulated development and informal settlements are often built on unstable soil, cracking and crumbling under the new weather extremes. “As the soil erodes, we have big ravines and gullies crossing the city centre. In Nacala’s informal settlements, there’s a lack of access to water, electricity and sanitation.”
Warning of a looming tragedy, the Mayor of Nacala, Rui Chong Saw, said, “the city lacks the basic infrastructure to make it resilient to climate change. Some settlements and neighborhoods downtown are under sea-level.”
Exchanging Solutions
The issues that Nacala faces are solvable. With the right expertise and know-how, these threats need not bring the economy to its knees. This is where the Global Adaptation Network steps in.
A face-to-face learning exchange was funded by GAN and organized by the Durban Adaptation Charter (DAC). The idea was to build climate change action by connecting adaptation experts from South Africa and Mozambique into a common platform where solutions can be easily transferred. Despite working in separate countries, these experts, in fact, face very similar adaptation challenges.
The exchange consisted of two legs. First, experts and government officials from Durban visited Mozambique to discuss techniques for handling sea-level rise and climate governance issues.
Second, adaptation practitioners from three Mozambican cities – Pemba, Quelimane, and Nacala – visited Durban to discuss community-based biodiversity planning, solid-waste management and renewable energy. This 2nd leg took place at the start of 2017 and the advantages are still unfolding today
Nacala has now developed a detailed implementation plan to reduce sedimentation rates in the harbor. The plan includes the development of a coastal forum, incorporating businesses, residents, and government officials.
“We learnt a lot of things about soil erosion, sea-level rise and reforestation”, said Amade from Nacala. “In Durban, we met specialists and had an opportunity to see what they’re doing on-the-ground. We’re still getting benefits now.”
Long-term Impacts
Now that a year has passed, the long-term impacts of these exchanges are emerging.
Having been torn apart by gullies and ravines, the city centre in Nacala is on the mend. During the exchange a community project was developed to cultivate vetiver grass, which stabilizes the soil and halts the further rupturing of ravines. Communities can now take action into their own hands.
In Quelimane - a Mozambican city involved in the exchange – expert engineers from South Africa managed to notice, in the nick of time, that urban development was occurring in the wrong place. If unchecked, the fragile and crumbling terrain could wreck the business hub of the city. The Quelimane authorities were notified, allowing them to steer development elsewhere.
The Mayor of Quelimane, Dr Manuel de Araujo, said: “We learnt a lot during this workshop. Now we are teaching people how to build houses that are resilient to climate change, flooding, wind and so on. The more we exchange experiences, the more we learn from each other.”
‘Hub & Compact’
One of the direct results from the learning exchange was the creation of a ‘Hub and Compact’ approach for climate action among six Mozambican cities. The Compact strategy involves tying cities together into a network with a coordinated approach to climate adaptation, transcending political boundaries in the process.
This collaborative approach, which originated in South East Florida, allows the sharing of skills, the co-generation of knowledge, and it increases the efficiency of reporting, in turn allowing more time for hands-on climate adaptation action.
“The compact shares challenges and solutions. We are all coastal cities. We face similar challenges and you have to be knowledgeable in all sectors,” said Amade. “It’s very useful not just in Nacala, but the entire country.”
Following from this Compact, Pemba is now restoring green infrastructure along their coastal belt, protecting the soil from erosion. A project to preserve marine ecosystems through sustainably managed seafood production is helping to diversify the community diet and ensure balance and security.
Moving Forward
Dr Sean O’Donoghue, Manager of the Climate Protection Branch in Durban, explained that this GAN learning exchange has inspired and catalyzed a chain of other exchanges, each organized by the Durban Adaptation Charter.
Crucially, these face-to-face exchanges represent a bottom-up methodology for climate action. A fundamental prerequisite for climate adaptation is knowledge, and learning exchanges hold the key for ensuring on-the-ground expertise is spread far and wide.
Dr O’Donoghue added, “the more we see the different contexts of these climate change issues being played out in Africa, the more we realize how similar our challenges are.”
