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Me and my colleague, discussing some of the scenarios
Workshop attendees
Professor Susan Booysen, MISTRA's director of research, giving a welcoming speech.

 

I finalized designing the survey and distributed it last week, to 24 DFIs which are accredited to implement projects (funding project preparation and construction of programmes and projects) on behalf of GEF/GCF and or Adaptation Fund. I am hoping for a high response rate after 3 weeks and I can start analyzing the results. Moreover, I submitted the 1st and 2nd chapter of my dissertation last week.

Last week I also had a chance to attend the GEF workshop in Durban, where projects that the eThekwini municipality/City of Durban is currently working on were presented. The projects which were presented have a potential to be funded by the GEF, under the GEF’s Sustainable Cities Programme, read more about the programme here https://www.thegef.org/topics/sustainable-cities. The programme aims to address environmental degradation in large cities located in developing countries. Drivers of climate change, such as urbanization, high population growth/migration, high consumption of energy etc., usually occur in cities. Therefore, GEF sees cities having the potential to be drivers of green economic development and climate resilient communities.

On the 12th of July I attended another workshop conducted by MISTRA, “Transition to low carbon economy scenarios”. Different low carbon scenarios were presented and discussed. What was really interesting was that South Africa has to simultaneously address climate change and the usually neglected development issues such as unemployment and unsecured land tenure. Furthermore, it was discussed how mining waste affects poor communities downstream. Astonishingly, mines are one of the main sources of income for poor households in rural areas. Mines create job opportunities, for people without skills that are in demand in the job market. The main question was where will mine workers work if mining activity is ceased. Even though some of them can go to farming, most of them will struggle to find jobs because South Africa already has an unemployment rate of 26.6%.

In the meantime, I am waiting  for responses from DFIs and gathering literature which I will use to discuss my research findings.