Alternative guidelines for mainstreaming climate and disaster resilience options into municipality integrated development planning : a case of Zambia

Abstract

The Zambian government has enacted and promulgated the Urban and Regional Planning Act (3 of 2015) that mandates all municipalities to use integrated development planning and plans (IDPs) as principal planning and budgeting tools for their statutory developmental planning and decision-making. In so doing, the government has not made available any policy implementation guidelines on how municipalities should formulate integrated development plans. At the same time, government expects municipalities to mainstream climate change adaptation-mitigation into their municipality integrated development plans but without any accompanying guidelines on how to do so. No studies have been undertaken in Zambia to address this research gap. There have been no accompanying policy implementation guidelines formulated for integrated development planning, that would even harmonise and mainstream both climate change adaptation-mitigation (CCA-M) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) into integrated development plans. Conceptually, climate change adaptation-mitigation (CCA-M) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) are similar concepts. Both concepts and practices of CCA-M and DRR contribute to attaining the integrated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) but continue to be implemented in parallel at the national and sub-national levels. These two concepts and practices require harmonisation and implementation in unison irrespective of their different policy and conceptual developmental path they have developed through. These two concepts need to be harmonised and mainstreamed into local government integrated development planning in Zambia to enhance natural, built environment and societal systems resilience. Local governments worldwide have been identified to be effective means to address both climate change and disaster risk, are suitable to address local vulnerability and enhance resilience using public programmes and resources. Local governments are closer to the natural, built environment and societal systems to address climate change and disaster risk to strengthen resilience. However, undertaking the harmonisation process and later mainstreaming these two into the local government development planning system is still a challenge globally, including in Zambia. Using a forward reasoning approach to address the super wicked problem of climate change and disaster risk, this study aims to develop and propose evidence-based alternative Guidelines for Integrated Development Planning that harmonises and mainstreams both CCA-M and DRR into decentralised municipality integrated development plans, budgeting and decision-making process in Zambia. These alternative guidelines are to guide local government planners and other stakeholders to harmonise and mainstream both CCA-M and DRR into already existing IDPs for the eight districts or municipalities that already had IDPs developed by 2017, and to help develop

new IDPs for the other 111 districts that did not have IDPs by 2017 onwards. The eight districts that had completed drafting IDPs in 2017 were Lusaka, Livingstone, Lumwana (and now Kalumbila), Chongwe, Chavuma, Mambwe, Mongu and Limulunga municipalities. Overall, this thesis is pragmatic in approach in line with the public policy research orientation that has to identify what works and what does not. As such, the study utilises a blend of research methods but within qualitative grounded theory methodology to ensure the final outputs are produced more rigorously. The qualitative grounded theory involves repeated data collection until a point of saturation is reached to address the research objectives. In terms of format, this thesis is by research articles and an extended synthesis chapter. Four articles and an extended chapter are written, and these represent the study research questions one to five. Policy convergence theoretical framework ties all the four articles together horizontally while policy coherence ties each article to the four 2015 main international / global developmental agreements that inform this study. These are the Agenda 2030, Paris Agreement on Climate Change, Sendai Framework of Action for Disaster Risk Management, and the UN-Habitat New Urban Agenda for sustainable cities and communities. Both primary and secondary data is collected from purposefully and snowball sampled developmental planners at municipality, provincial and national level in Zambia exclusively for Article 1. A similar approach was used to collect data in Zambia and South Africa for Article 2. The data is collected using key informant interviews, sample survey and content analysis. Only secondary data is collected and analysed in Article 3 and 4 that are systematic reviews. Heuristic and functional modelling are used to synthesise the findings from the four articles to feed into the development and proposing of the alternative Guidelines for Integrated Development Planning that harmonises and mainstreams both CCA-M and DRR into integrated development plans for Zambia. Triangulation of the data collected is done by first collecting the data at the district level and then validating it at a provincial and national level and with reviewed literature. To take care of the triangulation needs, three municipalities are canvased in South Africa for Article 2, a cross-national comparative study on IDPs, before canvasing the province. These municipalities are Matlosana Local Municipality (in Klerksdorp, North-West Province) and Dr Kenneth Kaunda District Municipality (in Orkney in North-West Province as well). Mangaung Metro (City of Bloemfontein in Free State Province), The Free State Provincial Departments of Local Government; Environmental Affairs; and disaster management were also visited. These Provincial Departments are all based in Bloemfontein Metro, the provincial capital of the Free State Province. All municipalities in Zambia are canvased for this study, and the researcher also

undertook three months internship study with the Monze Town Council in Zambia to appreciate in much more detail how decision-making was done at the municipality level. The Zambian government acknowledges the similarities between climate change adaptation-mitigation and disaster risk reduction. These similarities are documented wittingly and unwittingly in the National Policy for Climate Change of 2016, the Disaster Management Act (15 of 2010), and the Disaster Management Policy of 2015. These similarities are not articulated so much in subsequent project documents that champion either CCA-M or DRR. On the other hand, integrated development planning and plans as used in Zambia is not a home-grown concept but originates from the West and partly originates from the 1947 British Town and Country Planning approach. There is strong evidence that Zambia adopted the current form of IDP concept and to some extent, the practice, through a policy convergence approach from South Africa. Nonetheless, this concept and practice are equally not South African home-grown. Integrated Development Planning concept and practice is underpinned by the neo-liberal political economy ideology, alternative bottom-up developmental theory, neo-liberal spatial planning theory, legislation framework and professional planning ethics and values. It is also, a sustainable developmental concept to address social, economic and environmental developmental problems the countries face the world over. It is the right vehicle for enhancing resilience to address climate change and disaster resilience using local government public policy framework and resources. It is a basis for developing countries to receive international developmental financial assistance as members of the United Nations. Legal, policy and enabler frameworks to harmonise and mainstream both CCA-M and DRR into decentralised municipality IDPs are still weak in Zambia as there is little action by the government to try to streamline these frameworks in Zambia post 2015. The year 2015 yardstick used is when the four major international development frameworks that govern the subject matter in this study were ratified / endorsed by all the United Nations member states. Theoretical framework-wise for mainstreaming, there is no single model that can be cited and used globally to analyse case studies of municipalities that can be considered as best practice(s) for harmonising and mainstreaming both CCA-M and DRR into decentralised municipality IDPs. This study has assembled a new analytical model for analysing municipalities at country level to determine which ones could be described to have best practices for harmonising and mainstreaming both CCA-M and DRR into IDPs. The study does not give a name to this assembled analytical framework, but recommends that this blended framework / model is included and used in analysing both climate change and disaster risk, to identify harmonised options for

mainstreaming both CCA-M and DRR into IDPs. This blended model is also part of the developed and proposed alternative guidelines for mainstreaming both CCA-M and DRR into IDPs. There is less consistency on how the terminology of disaster risk reduction and disaster risk management is used by the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit in Zambia. Then CCA-M seems to be better funded in Zambia for long-term developmental activities and the bulk of the funding is from external bilateral and multilateral donors. Municipalities in Zambia are not yet fully decentralised by devolution. Lack of full decentralisation and three-way planning system in Zambia at district / municipality level is a big challenge to successfully implementing the IDP concept. Ultimately, this study has developed and proposed evidence-based policy implementation guidelines for harmonising and mainstreaming both CCA-M and DRR into integrated development planning by synthesising the findings from the four journal articles written. These guidelines are not yet public policy. The process to convert individually formulated policy implementation guidelines into public policy implementation guidelines must be proposed to the central government by a line Ministry of Local Government in this context. As such, the study recommends escalating these proposed guidelines to the Ministry of Local Government post-this doctorate degree, to further escalate these proposed policy guidelines to Cabinet to be adopted into public policy implementation guidelines. Other specific recommendations are to encourage practitioners and academicians to continue debating and pursuing processes to find optimum ways to place CCA-M into DRR and vice versa. This is dependent on which one theme is better funded than the other between CCA-M and DRR, and that is more favoured by the respective government to lead the other from a practical perspective. For instance, CCA-M and DRR still seem to be implemented in parallel at the municipality level in Zambia but CCA-M is more favoured for longer-term developmental financing by the bilateral and multilateral donors, the major supporters of this developmental theme. Based on literature review in Article 4, even though South Africa is not among the countries with high Climate Risk Index (CRI) that was used as an input to determine which countries have best practices on how to harmonise and mainstream CCA-M and DRR into IDPs globally, the country has successfully documented how it has mainstreamed CCA-M only into IDP through mode-2, trans-disciplinary co-production of knowledge in third space. The challenge is that this model does not document how DRR concept and practice could be incorporated into this process as well. This could be a good follow up study to analyse and document how this particular model can harmonise and mainstream both CCA-M and DRR into IDPs at the municipality level, and how guidelines could be developed to guide this process. The South African model can be

implemented alongside the UN-Habitat concept of City Resilience Action Planning (CityRAP) and the United Nations Capital Development Fund, Local Climate Adaptive Facility with its associated Assessing Climate Change Adaptation Framework (UNCDF LoCAL ACCAF model) to compare the effectiveness of all these three promising models to enhance climate and disaster resilience at municipality level through municipality IDPs. Ultimately, this thesis contributes to the debate of harmonising and mainstreaming both CCA-M and DRR into local government or local authorities. This is through the developed and proposed alternative guidelines that harmonise and mainstream both CCA-M and DRR into IDPs. For the first time, this study clarifies the concept of Integrated Development Planning and Plans in Zambia from an ideological lens, theoretical underpinnings, historical perspective, current framework of practices and from the views of the planners. The study further clarifies how integrated development planning and plans ought to be managed and financed in Zambia based on a cross-national comparative study undertaken between Zambia and South Africa. This clarification is crucial as it lays the foundation for any future conceptual work on IDP in Zambia. The study also clarifies how climate change adaptation-mitigation and disaster risk reduction ought to be harmonised conceptually and imbedded into primary or overall Guidelines for Integrated Development Planning. Later the study describes how the harmonised concept, practice and options of both CCA-M and DRR ought to be mainstreamed into decentralised municipality integrated development plans in Zambia to enhance resilience. Developmental planners are therefore encouraged to read the individual published articles in this thesis in full to appreciate these findings for their own professional development and practice.