Generating transformative capacity: ICLEI Africa’s urban natural assets for Africa programme

Jessica Kavonic; Harriet Bulkeley

doi:10.1080/13549839.2023.2190349

Generating transformative capacity: ICLEI Africa’s urban natural assets for Africa programme

Jessica Kavonic^*, Harriet Bulkeley

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Over the past five years, there have been growing calls for transformative responses to sustainability challenges, supported by increased transformative action in the pursuit of environmental justice. In parallel to this development within the policy arena, the concept of transformation and its potential is also attracting more attention within the research community. This paper uses the example of the Urban Natural Assests for Africa (UNA) programme to explore what transformative change might mean for cities and how this might be achieved through enacting just processes. It explores in some more detail different approaches to transformative change to explain how and why an enabling perspective on transformation is considered to be fruitful in developing the understanding of transformative capacity for change. The paper then explores how the programme was able to foster this capacity, with what consequences for the African cities and what it implies for the nature of change for urban social and environmental justice in the future.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	900-917
Number of pages	18
Journal	Local Environment
Volume	28
Issue number	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2023.2190349
Publication status	Published - Jul 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The UNA programme, implemented by ICLEI’s Cities Biodiversity Centre located in Cape Town, South Africa has been designed to transform development trajectories for African cities through governance and planning. This has been achieved through the lens of nature-based solutions (NBS), where these have been prioritised as the key vehicle and mechanism for building local urban resilience. As a result, the programme seeks to improve human well-being and build climate resilience through integrating NBS into land-use planning and decision-making processes (ICLEI CBC ). Since the programme’s initiation in 2014, three flagship projects have been implemented under the UNA umbrella: Urban Natural Assets for Africa (UNA Africa), Urban Natural Assets for Africa: Rivers for Life (UNA Rivers) and Urban Natural Assets for Africa: Coasts for Life (UNA Coasts). All projects are funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) through SwedBio at the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC) and share several common overarching objectives (see ).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 ICLEI–Local Governments for Sustainability, Africa.

Keywords

Urban/Cities
Africa
transformational capacity

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10.1080/13549839.2023.2190349

Generating transformative capacity ICLEI Africa s urban natural assets for Africa programmeFinal published version, 3.1 MBLicence: Taverne

Cite this

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Generating transformative capacity: ICLEI Africa’s urban natural assets for Africa programme

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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