Maputo — Maputo Mayor David Simango said in Maputo on Thursday that this city needs urban planning that includes measures to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.

Addressing the opening session of a meeting of a consultative group to implement the initiative "Cities and Climate Change", Simango said that climate change poses serious challenges to Maputo, and urban planning is among the top priorities for the management and governance of the city.

"Unfortunately, in cities with poor resources, such as ours, urban planning still has many limitations, which leads to informal settlements", said Simango.

He added that to try and correct these problems, the Maputo municipality urban planners are open to accept public participation and preferences, taking into account the existing sparse resources.

He admitted that climate change is no longer "a myth" in Maputo, where many residents are living in places vulnerable to climatic variation.

"As an example we can cite the Coast Road, that has been suffering serious erosion, worsened by climate change and disorganized land occupation, all posing a major challenge to the municipality", he said.

According to Simango, it is not only coastal erosion that is a headache for the municipal authorities. A recent study conducted by the Science Faculty of the Eduardo Mondlane University recommends the adoption of measures to control the quality of the air in the city.

The study concluded that there are worrying levels of pollution in Maputo and the neighbouring city of Matola. The situation is worse in the poorer suburbs, where there is large scale use of wood fuel and kerosene, and a high level of dust in streets that are not tarred.