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Paper short abstract:

The paper presents goals and first results of the CHIDA project for debate. It aims to identify innovative pathways of NbS-related, socially inclusive urban development to tackle major ecological and social challenges and to enable urban residents to guide their own resilience-building processes.

Paper long abstract:

Cities in sub-Saharan Africa are currently undergoing extraordinarily dynamic processes of change and are thus confronted with a multitude of contradicting phenomena which undermine efforts to build urban resilience and sustainability. Climate-induced uncertainties and other environmental, social or economic pressures and risks are significantly accumulating, with often cascading negative impacts on everyday urban lifeworlds, especially of the urban poor. City administrations and others involved in urban planning and management are also affected, as they increasingly lack the resources and capacities to adequately fulfil their tasks. Against this background, the paper will introduce the trans- and interdisciplinary research project CHIDA (Challenges for Inclusive Urban Development in Africa: Designing Nature-Based Solutions and Enhancing Citizenship to Mitigate Hazards and Livelihood Risks) in order to critically discuss approaches, goals and first findings. CHIDA builds on a Nature-based Solutions (NbS) approach and addresses the potentials of and interrelationships between NbS (particularly urban Green Infrastructure), citizenship, and livelihood security, to mitigate hazards and livelihood risks in four cities in Malawi and South Africa. The project aims to reveal inequalities in access to and use of urban natural resources, spaces and ecosystems and to unpack the different risks faced by the urban poor and marginalized. It examines the potentials of NbS in mitigating threats and seeks to develop tools to tackle simultaneous pressures and cascading impacts. The project sees the active involvement of citizens in the design and implementation of NbS as key to mobilizing ecosystem services and shaping their own resilience-building processes.