Lessons learned from the risk-informed urban development initiative in the SADC region
The 2018 revision of the World Urbanization Prospects (United Nations 2019) anticipated the global urban population to increase by 2.5 billion urban dwellers by 2050 with about 90% of the increase concentrated in Asia and Africa. As part of sub-Saharan Africa which is experiencing an annual urban population growth rate of 4.1%, compared with a global rate of 2.0% (Saghir & Santoro 2018), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states are also urbanising at a fast rate (Simkins 2021). This exposes larger populations and infrastructure to the risk of disasters such as floods, droughts and cyclones that are exacerbated by climate change.
The SADC region encompasses 16 Southern African countries, housing a diverse consortium of vibrant market towns, rural communities, intermediate cities and metropolises, with tremendous opportunities for green economic growth and innovation (UN Habitat 2022). Despite this notable risk of disasters in the region, the changing land use and unsustainable urban development are not adequately considered in urban development planning and programming (Pourazar 2017). Climate change and extreme weather events in the SADC have adversely affected the region over the years and will become increasingly severe over the next few decades (Climate Change Adaptation in SADC 2011; Scholes & Engelbrecht 2021). The region’s exposure and vulnerability to disasters are inter alia linked to the river systems’ characteristics, its geomorphology, climate change and human-made activities, and these are exacerbated by factors such as unsustainable urban development (Rusca et al. 2023). Despite the increasing awareness of risk, these are still not adequately taken into consideration in development planning and programming. Current approaches usually address one threat at a time rather than considering several multiple threats and simultaneously occurring risks (Opitz-Stapleton et al. 2019).
Disaster risk management (DRM) practices are still mostly concentrating on response to disasters rather than adopting cross-cutting and preventive approaches to minimising risk (Samuel et al. 2022). With limited resources to manage the threat of disasters or ensure the continuity of basic services provision of critical infrastructures and services, settlements are sites of concentrated risk, unabating vulnerabilities and repeated service delivery failures because of recurrent disaster impacts (Abbasabadi-Arab, Khankeh & Mosadeghrad 2022; Atanga & Tankpa 2022; Rusk et al. 2022). As such, reducing urban vulnerability, exposure and strengthening coping capacity and building resilience to a wide range of shocks in Southern Africa are central to ensuring sustainable and risk-informed urban development in the region.
