Nature and Cities: Spotlight on Africa - Talking Transformations with Ingrid Coetzee (ICLEI Africa)

It’s time for Africa. A continent that is home to 1.2 billion people. But how are cities and communities responding to a changing climate and building resilience? In this episode, we discuss how cities in Africa are working with nature and biodiversity. We interview Ingrid Coetzee who is the Director of Biodiversity, Nature and Health at ICLEI Africa and the ICLEI Cities Biodiversity Center. She talks about a host of initiatives in Africa and lessons on how to connect biodiversity, nature, cities and communities.

What is Talking Transformations?

Research shows conversations matter - both for learning and inspiring action. In this new podcast collection, we are 'Talking Transformations' with thought leaders from government, industry, and academia. Our mission is to discuss current trends in science, technology, governance, and behaviours to transform our society and economy towards sustainability. 'Talking Transformations' is produced by the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE) at Lund University. We release a mini-series several times a year, consisting of a bundle of episodes around a common theme. Our inaugural mini-series focuses on cities, climate, and change. Also, check out our regular long-form podcast 'Advancing Sustainable Solutions'.

[00:00:13.090] � Kes McCormick
You�re listening to a mini-series that explores cities, climate, and change� part of a new podcast collection called Talking Transformations produced by the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University. My name is Kes McCormick, and in this mini-series, I�ll guide you through a collection of interviews, recorded at the ICLEI World Congress, hosted in Malm�, Sweden during May 2022.� We�ll explore the dynamics of transformation in cities responding to climate change. We�ll meet influential change-makers from a range of organisations including the World Resources Institute, the European Commission and ICLEI.� And, through our discussions, I hope to share knowledge, examples, and inspiration relevant to you in your city, as we ask� �What next for cities?�

[00:01:01.010] � Ingrid Coetzee
My name is Ingrid Coetzee and my title is the Director of Biodiversity, Nature and Health and I work for ICLEI Africa, but also for the ICLEI Cities Biodiversity Center. We're based in Cape Town and we serve the whole of the African continent, but also the global agenda. And my work revolves around nature and cities, and how to improve quality of life, well-being, health and resilience in cities.

[00:01:35.630] � Kes McCormick
Wow, it sounds like a really interesting collection of topics and so on. And turning to Africa, I mean, Africa is a part of the world that's just so important, and sometimes I think it can be forgotten. But in the context of Africa, what role can cities play in climate action?

[00:01:51.350] � Ingrid Coetzee
Look, I think that African cities particularly are already playing a role. It's not just what can they do? We've just come from this amazing congress of ICLEI cities from all over the world, and getting together with cities like Dasaka and Kampala, Cape Town, Lagos State, even. One thing that has really impressed me is the fact that the cities from Africa are taking action. There's less talk, there's a whole lot of action. We don't always have the resources, we don't always necessarily have the exposure to many of the big investment markets and those sorts of things, but we're certainly doing really practical things. For example, in the city of Dar es Salaam, at some stage, ICLEI was approached. We're doing some work around mainstreaming nature, into city planning and into city challenges, around how do you deal with heat, island effects, or water security or flooding. Dar es Salaam is one of the fastest growing cities in Africa. Very little resources, but also big problems. And most of the city, in fact, a large portion of the city is informal. And they said to us, but how can we invest the little bit of money that we have in greenery facing all these challenges? So we worked with the city of Dar es Salaam, we took aerial photographs and we sat on the floor with our experts, with citizens, with officials from the city, and we mapped where the natural assets were. And we've come up with a policy document which we call the thematic atlas, which in very simple but practical terms, shows the city's decision makers how to invest and where to invest to get maximum return on investment. If it's a problem around heat islands, these are the sort of corridors where you plant greenery or if it's a water security problem, et cetera. And it's a very simple way. It's a methodology that's easily replicable in other cities.

[00:03:57.390] � Kes McCormick
Could you explain a little bit more about the types of impacts, this specific initiative you hope to have in cities in Africa?

[00:04:03.450] � Ingrid Coetzee
Yeah, for sure. I mean, what are the sort of unintended consequences was that the person that we'd been working with in the city was redeployed and she started working for the National Ministry of Lands. And that whole philosophy and sort of methodology was taken up into the national level of government. And look, it's not fine scale planning, but it's the sort of policy document that mayors can use. And the national government has incorporated that now in their revision of the planning sort of legislation and policy frameworks. And in fact, we've had interest from other cities around Africa, even other parts of the world, say, wow, this is the sort of instrument you can develop with little resources pretty quickly, where you match the contributions and the benefits from nature in a spatial way and into a policy document that can help guide whether it's investment or physical planning or whatever.

[00:05:02.270] � Kes McCormick
Look, it's a great example, and you've mentioned several cities already, but can you tell us about another specific city in Africa that really inspires you with the work they're doing on climate action?

[00:05:13.800] � Ingrid Coetzee
There's so many, I don't know where to start. I feel like a child in a sweet shop. But I've just come from a session where we were looking at the impact of climate change on the coastal zone. And for example, we had a speaker from the city of Cape Town and they doing a whole range of things from doing very scientifically evidence based planning in terms of setting coastal management lines. Whereas, as the speaker was saying, is they literally draw a line in the sand along the beach in terms of no further development around here because we're having sea level rise in our city. But other things included very practically initiatives involving nature-based solutions, where, for example, we've got dune erosion, planting back some of the natural species, again using community involvement. So there's an element of awareness creation, but also creating jobs for small scale people and not small scale people, sorry for the small scale sector. And something else that we've done a lot, and this is linked also to climate change. You may remember that a few years ago, I think it was 2018, cape Town was faced with the day zero scenario and what to do. We've got waters running out, we're fast approaching that day zero where we won't have any more water. And they did all kinds of things we had desalination, demand management, et cetera. But the one approach that turned out to be the most effective, and the most cost effective as well, was to embark on a very comprehensive and aggressive program of alien clearing and basically taking out pines, eucalyptus, in the mountain catchment areas, not just in the city, but the catchment areas around the city. And the incredible thing about this is that they found that the yield in terms of additional water per annum since that program started was in the order of about 55 billion liters of water. So that was amazing success story.

[00:07:23.410] � Kes McCormick
Look, there are so many examples here of cities and actions that you're talking about. But just one final question. I mean, if there was a national policy maker standing here from Africa or multinational company looking to invest in cities in Africa, what kind of support would you ask for cities working on climate change?

[00:07:39.970] � Ingrid Coetzee
Look, one of the things that I certainly would ask for is support us to help ourselves. We've got a platform called Cities with Nature. This is where cities can connect with each other, they can share best practices, and it's linked to the global biodiversity agenda in the sense that we've created a platform which is endorsed by the parties as well as the CBD, so that they can share the commitments for things that they are already doing and the things that they plan to do. And this is evidence of, you know, local actions have a global impact and it's to support cities in coming together. If there's a need for funding to support projects, because the big thing now is going to be implementation. We passed just talking, we need to get those projects on the ground. And there is such a great need, there's so much innovation and such magnificent ideas in our cities. From clearing alien vegetation, to protected areas, to corridors, to working with wetlands, restoring our wetlands, mangroves, creating job opportunities for unemployed people, addressing the marginalized issues as well in societies.

[00:08:51.950] � Kes McCormick
Thank you so much for being here today. It's fantastic to hear about the initiatives taking place in Africa. So much to learn from this continent. Great to have you here.

[00:08:59.720] � Ingrid Coetzee
Thank you so much. I enjoyed this.

[00:09:13.830] � Kes McCormick
Once again, we thank our guest for joining us on this episode of Talking Transformations, a new podcast collection by the IIIEE at Lund University.�In addition, we produce a monthly podcast called �Advancing Sustainable Solutions�, available wherever you listen to podcasts.�This mini-series is produced in collaboration with the podcast team of �Advancing Sustainable Solutions�, and supported by ICLEI and Viable Cities. ICLEI, also known as Local Governments for Sustainability, is a global network of more than 2500 local and regional governments committed to sustainable urban development. Viable Cities is a strategic innovation program in Sweden focusing on the transition to climate-neutral and sustainable cities.�If you want to learn more about ongoing research and activities, visit our website at www.iiiee.lu.se. And, stay tuned for new episodes of Talking Transformations.