More than 80% of Africa's population growth over the next 30 years will occur in cities. Urban centres will generate the bulk of C02 emissions and waste, while also remaining highly vulnerable to climate impacts.

On 8th December, 2018, the African Development Bank outlined the issues around urbanisation during a series of sessions for 'Transport and Cities Day' at COP24 in Katowice, Poland.

In sessions covering The State of African Cities, Resilient Pathways for Sustainable Urban Development in Africa, Transport Emissions Monitoring and Mapping and Financing Urban Resilience, several speakers noted the complexity of trying to create solutions for cities that are in constant flux and that often have many informal elements.

It is estimated that $20-25 billion per year needs to be invested in basic urban infrastructure, and an additional $20 billion per year in housing to respond to urban population growth. These investments need to be climate-proofed in order to ensure a sustainable pathway for urban development.

However, one aspect which took centre stage was the importance of paying attention to the two hundred million Africans living in informal settlements or 'slums'. It was highlighted that more needed to be done from the perspective of acknowledging their particular vulnerability to climate shocks but also in learning to adopt community-driven solutions and innovations.

Shipra Narang Suri, Coordinator, Urban Planning and Design Branch at UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlements Programme), stated:"When one seventh of the world's population lives in informal populations; when they operate outside the usual systems, rules, guidelines etc, then the central preoccupation should be focusing on these most vulnerable people in urban areas."

Informal settlements are often constructed in hazardous parts of the city, such as floodplains or steep slopes, where land is cheaper. Inhabitants usually lack tenure, which means that they face a constant threat of eviction. Additionally, most lack access to risk-reducing infrastructure such as decent sanitation, piped water and drains. Consequently, their livelihoods are often unsafe and unreliable, contributing to chronic health problems and economic insecurity.

Residents of informal settlements are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Even if the world manages to limit global temperature increases to well below 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures, these communities will face significant new environmental shocks in the form of storms, floods, heat stress, sea level rises, as well as long-term food and water insecurity. Already, Cape Town has faced the prospect of 'Day Zero' as its dams run dry due to climactic variability.

Deborah Roberts, Co-Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC , pointed out how these communities bring together the key issues set out in the recent IPPC report:

"This is a new era: the IPCC report identifies cities as the keystone for change. Uniquely, science has provided a platform to bring to the table issues of equity and justice.

Industry, land and energy are linked to urbanisation which is essentially a proxy for a massive transition that will change the world. But the fact of the matter is that cities are still very traditional places and some are still in the 19th century in their thinking."

She also set out the case for using these communities as examples of the types of collaboration the world needs on a wider scale in order to react quickly to the challenges ahead:

"Who has shown the ability to break the mould and change rapidly? Who can work within resilient systems using sustainable energy? Those are the people living in informal settlements. They've realised that traditional systems do not work for them and they are building the city from the bottom up. Rapid change is possible, and informal cities offer us lessons from the 21st century. We need to democratise our cities to allow this education to happen."

Sheela Patel, Founding Member of Slum /Shack Dwellers International, emphasised the high level of proactivity that informal communities are employing to improve their living conditions:

"We have poor communities using resources to upgrade their settlements. They bring in different, small, modest improvements, and then they get into bigger projects such as improving the quality of their housing, toilets etc.

The projects happen through the women's savings groups, which provide trust inside communities and help them to save together towards improvements. They then learn to develop transparency and financial literacy - accounting for the money, giving loans, settling finance, taking the data and giving it to local grant makers."

Roberts was keen to stress, however, that cities with informal communities are far from problem-free:

"One doesn't want to romanticise - many live very hard lives without basic services - but it is clear that separating out the development agenda from the climate agenda doesn't work - a sustainable future is aligned with a just and equitable one."

It was clear from the panel that improving the resilience of low-income and other marginalised urban residents must be a priority. Unless the people living in informal settlements see a marked improvement in their adaptive capacity, climate change will erode the development gains of recent decades and undermine future prosperity in Africa.

One organisation doing this is Adaptation Fund. Martina Dirge, a coordinator from the fund, spoke about how it supports work in vulnerable urban settings by making investments in sectors such as coastal zones management and food security. She outlined a project in Senegal where $8.6million has been spent to protect vulnerable people and local infrastructures against coastal erosion by installing sea walls to protect the urban areas.

"So far, the project has helped to protect 3000 fishing jobs and resettled 200 households in an area highly prone to landslides and flooding to a green village which is far better suited to their needs."

All the panel agreed that climate finance systems need to be designed to channel resources to the local level. How funds are spent should be decided alongside the communities that need them and there should be an effort to build the capacities of those most at risk of climate change.

Ms Patel emphasized the huge potential for city authorities and informal settlements to work together:

"In Cape Town for example, there are many settlements where the city just can't give permission to upgrade their homes, so they were given new places, designed by the community alongside the city government, who worked out the finance side of things. The minute city governance structures and communities explore things together the synergy is amazing. Many city authorities hide behind a legality wall, but if that is overcome then many unique solutions are created."

There are many promising models emerging from sub-Saharan Africa at the national, city and community levels. These models have immense potential to be scaled or replicated, thereby enhancing resilience in towns and cities throughout the region.

The African Development Bank is supporting African national and city governments with investments in sustainable transport, waste and pollution management. The new urban development division of the Bank will focus on providing more integrated planning solutions that will take into account in its investment projects the vulnerability demographic of the population in both primary and secondary cities. The Urban Municipal Development Fund, which aims to be operational next year, will address upstream planning with municipalities to provide better planning and basic services for these communities.