Life in Durban’s Quarry Road West informal settlement is no easy ride, owing in part to a pernicious mix of unemployment, poverty and lack of housing. To make matters worse, climate change has been sweeping away people’s homes as heavy rains cause the river that runs through the settlement to burst its banks.
Standing on the sides of Palmiet River, father-of-two Samuel Zondani relays how he lost his home.
“I didn’t have time to get back to my job because I was rebuilding my house. My boss didn’t understand, so I lost the job,” says Zondani, aged 28. “I was doing paving. I never got the job back.”
“Around 12 of my friends have lost their houses.”
In April 2019, a staggering 240 homes in the informal settlement were lost in a major flood. This doesn’t even begin to capture the pain from losing personal possessions, among them ID cards and family photographs.
For many African cities, adapting to climate change is a considerable challenge due to limited capacity to both predict and respond to climate disasters.
Building climate resilience in eThekwini (commonly known as Durban) will be of added importance for South Africa because the city hosts the largest port on the east coast of the continent. The question is: how do we build climate-resilience in cities already facing urgent challenges?
An initiative known as Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities (EPIC) may be offering some auspicious signs on how to achieve this. Initiated by the EPIC Network, the model solves real-world challenges in communities by connecting them with enthusiastic students looking for real-world experiences.
Through the partnership, cities benefit by leveraging the often-untapped expertise of local universities to tackle their sustainability challenges, while students develop professionally by gaining hands-on experience.
After 10 years of success in the United States, the EPIC model arrived in Africa in the form of a 2017 training workshop in Cape Town. This led to the establishment of the partnership’s Africa network. The Climate Protection Branch from the city of Durban soon formed a partnership with the local University of KwaZulu-Natal to pilot the approach in the hope that students could tackle some of the climate threats facing Quarry Road West.
Seven students from a master’s programme in Built Environment and Development Studies are now formulating a Disaster Risk Management Plan, which involves planning what to do before, during and after a disaster occurs. For instance, how should families prepare for floods? What are the best responses?
The students’ plan covers not only Quarry Road West but will also be applied as a framework for the estimated 590 other informal settlements in the city.
One of the solutions contained in the management plan includes a WhatsApp group, where communities upstream can warn those downstream when river levels rise, allowing families to move valuable possessions before disaster strikes. Meteorology experts from the university also use the group to share warnings if intense rainfall is forecast.
It’s been a watershed moment for the people of Quarry Road West.
“I was getting warning messages in a WhatsApp group,” says Zondani. “They say you must be aware there will be lots of rain tomorrow. I then share that information with others in the community so they can move their important stuff.”
One of the first tasks for the students was getting to know the communities, from which benefits of the EPIC model were instantly apparent. Distrust between the settlements and the municipality have often been a hindrance to fighting floods, and in some cases, city officials were physically beaten out of the area. The university students, on the other hand, were seen as politically neutral.
The students understood that first-and-foremost they needed to know who is most affected by the floods and who is most at risk. This analysis of vulnerability formed the bedrock of the response plan. For instance, when donations arrive, which families should receive them?
The students examined before-and-after drone images of the major flood in 2019, and the trust they built with the community allowed them to ‘ground-truth’ their findings by interviewing families near the river.
One of the students involved in the project, Mbali Mtshali, reflects: “Our city might not have the knowledge or the time to get personal with the people, so we came in and became a bridge between affected community members and the municipality. We were able to collect data on how many people lost houses.”
Mtshali continues: “The management plan prepares people and it gives them the knowledge they should have before there is any kind of hazard or flood.”
Beyond issues of flooding, another major element of the plan involves waste management. Communities dump trash in the river daily and the water’s flow essentially provides the service of litter removal, resulting in plastic sprawled all over the beaches where the river enters the sea. It’s not unusual to see belongings such as beds floating through the settlements.
By identifying the most at-risk areas in terms of the pollution, the students were able to pinpoint the most effective places for large rubbish containers.
Durban is not the only African city using the EPIC model to build climate resilience. Students from the University of Zambia partnered with Lusaka City Council to develop plans for water security in the informal settlements of the city. The financial cost to the city was only around US$45,000, instead of what would’ve been an estimated US$130,000–145,000 in professional fees.
In February 2019, representatives from 22 other African cities visited Durban to hear about the project at Quarry Road West, and to receive training on how to implement the approach back home.
A UN Environment Programme initiative known as the Global Adaptation Network (GAN) has been supporting the EPIC Network in their efforts to expand across the world, including the creation of an EPIC Asia-Pacific Network this year.
“The EPIC Network has stunning potential to help cities and communities adapt to climate change,” says Lis Bernhardt, Coordinator of the Global Adaptation Network. “The current Covid-19 crisis could divert a lot of resources needed for adaptation, which makes programmes like EPIC even more important as they use existing resources, thereby keeping resources free for other pressing challenges.”
At the training, Mtshali explains how she intends to transfer the skills she’s picked up: “I come from a rural area in Howick. It’s been hit by a lot of social and environmental concerns because the settlements are moving closer to the dam due to lack of space elsewhere. Maybe one day, I can transfer the knowledge I’ve gained in Quarry Road West to my own context back at home.”
“I’m a huge environmental fanatic,” Mtshali says with a smile. “This, for me, is a stepping stone to something bigger.”
For more information about the EPIC Model, visit the website.
