Attributes of a well adapting municipality: Emerging lessons from efforts by the City of Cape Town

Since 2006 there have been efforts within the City of Cape Town local government to get climate adaptation onto the municipal policy and planning agendas, and thereby have current and future climate risks and impacts considered in both the strategic and operational decisions made by the city council and branches of the city administration. This continues to be a challenging and complex process. Many lessons can be drawn from experiences to-date. The presentation below was an attempt at drawing out a few lessons that may be of interest and use to other municipalities in South Africa (originally presented at the Municipal Learning Exchange on Climate Adaptation held in Springbok, in October 2013). Some of these lessons may also be applicable to local governments elsewhere in the world.