World unites in Boksburg to fight climate change, water crisis
As the world celebrated World Water Day on March 22, local governments for sustainability in Africa, in collaboration with the Ekurhuleni Municipality, hosted the Local Climate Solutions for Africa 2017: Water and Climate congress under the theme “Water for Cities”.
The congress ran from March 22 to 24 at the Birchwood Hotel and OR Tambo Conference Centre.
The African continent faces many sustainability challenges, but none more critical than the threat to its water resources. This threat is exacerbated by climate change, burgeoning human populations, ageing and inadequate infrastructure, lack of strong urban planning frameworks and uncertain economic development trajectories.
The Local Climate Solutions for Africa conference was attended by delegates from cities across Africa. They came from various levels of government, academia, development agencies, civil society and the private sector, to seek collective solutions to the looming crisis.
The LoCS4Africa 2017 Congress was aimed at bringing together diverse African cities and uniting them and their partners in a common mission to collectively take action towards addressing the country’s most pressing urban water challenges, from flooding and drought, infrastructure, sanitation and associated quality of life and health challenges.
Speaking on the first day of the, Ekurhuleni executive mayor Clr Mzwandile Masina said the city was participating in the forum and other joint forums of global cities with the understanding of the need to act as one to build a sustainable future.
“The matter of climate change is among the leading questions of human survival in the 21st century. Just as we grapple with concepts of sustainable economies, immigration, global terrorism and various shades of nationalism, we also have to know that we pursue these questions in a natural environment that is under severe ecological pressures.
“The rise of industrial economies has also seen dramatic changes to the face of the earth. Human activity has led to the shrinkage in natural forests. This has come as a result of deforestation for the building of cities and human settlements as well as the use of timber as natural inputs in various levels of the industrial value chain,” Masina said.
Masina said that while these continental and global challenges may seem insurmountable, he was confident that with such platforms, which create the opportunity for social discourse and global partnerships, the city would, in collaboration with its partners, develop a framework for addressing these challenges.
Deputy Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Andries Nel said despite tremendous advances made in developing an international consensus on dealing with climate change, the rise of right-wing populism internationally threatens to undermine our ability to deal with these matters collectively.
“We also share the concern of many mayors across the world that there are leaders of countries that occupy dominant positions in the world economy and who contribute significantly to international climate change who are now seeking to deny these realities and are threatening to reverse advances made in their policies domestically and internationally,”
“The world is urbanising very rapidly, Sixty-three percent of South Africans already live in urban areas. This will rise to 71% by 2030. By 2050 eight in 10 South Africans will live in urban areas. We need to guide the growth and management of urban areas in ways that unleash the potential of our cities and towns and reverse the terrible legacy of apartheid spatial injustice,” Nel said.
