President of the South African Local Government Association, Bheke Stofile, has made a call for an international funding mechanism for cities and towns in developing countries to deal with the impact of climate change.
This as several high-level speakers from South Africa said at the opening ceremony of the BRICS Urbanisation Forum in Durban, that natural disasters due to climate change are causing a regression in the provision of services. Durban is still struggling to rebuild infrastructure that was destroyed in the last year’s two flood incidents. These claimed over 400 lives and caused billions of rand of damage.
“This as urbanisation is increasing globally, putting more pressure on service delivery,” Stofile explains.
“We call for BRICS family of nations to design innovative alternative funding solution to support infrastructure development, implementation of programmes such as enhancing resilience to climate and disaster in our cities,” said Stofile.
Cities are in the forefront in climate change action but they are unable to shoulder the massive infrastructure investment and adaptation effort required for adaptability.
UN Habitat Executive Director, Maimunah Sharif has told the forum via a video message that Africa and Asia are affected mostly by rapid urbanisation with 1.1 billion people living in slums and 2.8 billion people without adequate housing.
“This calls for an agile and innovative mobilization of technical resources, tools and information to create cities that are thoughtfully designed, inclusive and adaptable to future scenarios,” Sharif said.
