KNOWLEDGE CO-CREATION WORKSHOP

with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs on

SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENT CHANGE IN ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE

Democracy Works Foundation (DWF) is excited to announce a collaborative knowledge co-creation initiative in partnership with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) on the 28^th and the 1^st of March 2023 in Centurion.

The engagement is around Social and Environment Change, which is part of the Climate Change challenges communities face.   CoGTA has an important role in managing Disasters through communities, so it is essential that its members are fully appraised on climate change to support municipalities and the communities they serve.

This initiative is part of the Foundation’s commitment to supporting good climate change governance through the Fostering Inclusive Growth through Climate Change Champions project. The project aims to enhance Civil Society participation in municipal and private sector decision-making processes within the climate change and development nexus, within the context of the Just Transition. Supporting and building knowledge around municipal climate change-related public participation mandates is a key component of the project.

The Foundation appreciates CoGTA as a key stakeholder and strategic partner. Their role is to support municipalities and Traditional Leaders in delivering their mandates and responsibilities and strengthen cooperative governance, which aligns with the Foundation’s climate change initiative. CoGTA also hosts the National Disaster Management Centre, a key institution in supporting communities against known climate change impacts, such as the floods currently threatening lives and livelihoods in large parts of the country.

The training objectives are:

• To improve the understanding of the relationships between the environment and society and
• To co-create knowledge on how CoGTA can contribute to the adaptation and resilience of municipalities and communities.

The training aims to align efforts from various spheres of government to understand future challenges to come.

The planned outcomes of the training are as follows:

• How is the Earth changing, and what does this mean for society
• Getting to the root of our societal problems
• How is transformation possible
• What is possible, and how do we play a role
• What are the systems and structures that need to change society
• What are the democratic and governance Systems that will deliver a just world

The FIG CCC project is co-funded by the European Union and runs from March 2021 until February 2024 in the Northern Cape and Western Cape provinces of South Africa.

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The workshop is the third cross-provincial knowledge co-creation initiative of its kind and builds on the work that CSOs have done throughout the project. Since the start of the project, CSO partners – or Climate Change Champions – have conceptualised projects and communication campaigns which focus on integrating climate change into their work and connecting with municipal officials and private sector Social and Economic Development investments.

Based on evaluations, a mentorship programme and continuous engagement, the programme for the upcoming workshop is crafted to achieve the following outcomes in mind:

1. Interactive climate change literacy and localised climate change discourse
2. Participation in climate change-related municipal planning and budgetary processes
3. Interaction with Independent Power Producer’s Social Economic Development spend

As the last cross-provincial engagement, this workshop is designed to give participants maximum control to manage the agenda to build networks and initiatives that can last beyond the project’s lifespan. The methodology relies on the CSO partners’ expertise and provides the platform to co-design implementation efforts. These are directed towards building the resilience of communities against climate change impacts and taking advantage of the opportunities that mitigation efforts can unlock in line with the “Just Transition” approach.

A key learning from previous engagements is that CSOs struggle to engage their constituencies about climate change amongst the myriad of challenges they face, partly because of a lack of localised scientific terminology and inclusive participation approaches. As a response, the programme kicks off with an interactive theatre production developed by the Mpumelelo Youth Group from Kimberly as one avenue for communities to co-create knowledge about local climate change impacts and adaptation opportunities.

A team of expert keynote speakers and facilitators has been established to deliver an interactive and participatory programme. RIA Digital are communications and negotiations consultants with extensive experience designing and implementing campaigns for the public sector. They have been involved with the project since the beginning. ScienceLink PTY is a science communication company that assists scientists in making their research accessible to communities in African languages and plain English – a key challenge CSO partners have identified in facilitating meaningful participation. Knowledge Pele is a group of companies with research and advisory experience supporting impactful Social Economic Development Spend by Independent Power Producers. Their lived experience in facilitating relationships between IPPs and communities will provide invaluable insights and complement the expertise of CSO partners with experience in this regard.

The Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) builds knowledge around using effective public resource management for social accountability to promote open, participatory and accountable governments and will guide participants on engaging municipalities in budget-related decision-making. Together with Democracy Works Foundation, this team will draw on the expertise that participants bring into the room and manage processes to map out a way forward for the projects and communication plans that  Climate Change Champions have developed throughout the project.

The workshop uses the “Open Space” technique, giving participants maximum control in creating and managing the agenda. Through an Ideas Market place, knowledge co-creation keynote addresses, interactive and small group discussions and plenary feedback, the workshop programme is designed to open the space for discussions and planning activities that participants find helpful for their individual work and as a network.

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About The Fostering Inclusive Growth Through Climate Change Champions Project

The Fostering Inclusive Growth Through Climate Change Champions, known as the  “Climate for Growth project”, aims to empower communities to effectively identify and respond to how climate change impacts development priorities within communities and integrate the community’s development priorities into local government planning and resource allocation. The project is co-funded by the European Union and runs from March 2021 until February 2024 in the Northern Cape and Western Cape provinces of South Africa.

For more information on the Climate Change Champions Comms & Negotiations Workshop and Climate Change  programmes, contact DWF:
Mira Dutschke
South African Programme Manager
E  mira@democracyworksfoundation.org

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EU Twitter Handle: @EUinSA, @eu_eeas

The focus discussions for this year’s Women’s Parliament are matters concerning and affecting women in the province, such as the impact of climate change on women and economic opportunities, Gender Based Violence and Femicide; economic opportunities and the empowerment of women and promoting an activist citizenry to encourage the involvement of women in municipal oversight and active public participation.
The two-day Provincial Women’s Parliament delegates will be guided by the rules of the legislature, and the proceedings will be guided by the rules of the legislature where on 30 August 2022, a Chairperson will be appointed from the provincial delegates to chair a Committee Session, there will be 4 Portfolio Committee Meetings, and delegates will be part of the various Portfolio Committee Meetings and 2nd day on the 31 August 2022, delegates will present respective Committee reports in a mock House Sitting.

The various Committee meetings will be as follows:
i. Portfolio Committee on Department of Environment, Nature Conservation, Agriculture and Land Reform: Presentations by Department of Environment, Nature Conservation, Agriculture and Land Reform and Democracy Works Foundations on the impact of climate change on women; opportunities for women in green energy; and opportunities for women in access in land and opportunities in agriculture.

ii. Portfolio Committee on Economic Development and Tourism: Presentations by Department of Finance, Economic Development and Tourism and Mme re ka Thusa: Topic: Economic transformation and emancipation of women and opportunities for women.

iii. Portfolio Committee on Safety, Social Development and Health: Presentations by Department of Health, Department of Social Development, Department of Safety and Liaison and Northern Cape Liquor Board on the impact of substance abuse on women and children; and Maternal Health; and Department of Gender Based Violence and Femicide; Nortand.

iv. Governance and Administration (4): COGTA: District Model and public participation at the local level. Northern Cape Provincial Legislature and Commission on Gender Equality: Promotion of activist citizens, oversight and enhancing public participation and constitutional democracy. Democracy Works Foundation (DWF) is a non-profit organisation working toward strengthening Resilient Democracies in Southern Africa. Resilient democracies are inclusive, equitable, sustainable and consensus-orientated. We strengthen resilient democracies through 5 programmatic areas of work: monitoring democracy, strengthening democratic institutions, training democrats and leaders, strengthening democratic culture and governance, and climate change.

DWF and The Northern Cape Provincial Legislature Partnership

The partnership between Democracy Works Foundation and The Northern Cape Provincial Legislature is a long-standing relationship built over the years. DWF is currently implementing the Fostering Inclusive Growth through Climate Change Champions (FIGCCC) project with co-funding from the European Union in the Northern and Western Cape provinces.

The project seeks to support democratic and participatory processes within the renewable energy economy by supporting the integration of community-driven development priorities into municipal planning processes. It also seeks to create an environment where Civil Society Organisations can represent their communities’ needs amongst government officials and Independent Power Producers in climate change planning, policy and investment decision-making.

The 2022 Provincial Women’s Parliaments theme “increasing women participation in municipal and government oversight for a better future”, encourages women to become actively involved in decision-making processes and submit recommendations and complaints to the municipal council, to be informed of council meetings and decisions, attend open meetings, participate in the drafting of municipal legislation or by-laws and Independent Development Plans (IDPs) and financial oversight and the monitoring the performance of municipalities and provincial government states Gopane.’

Media are invited to join the Virtual Platform on 31 August 2022, the link will be active from 08:00 and the event will start at 09:00:
Microsoft Teams meeting
Join on your computer or mobile app
Click here to join the meeting
Meeting ID: 363 367 938 766 Passcode: zCQHfp

ENQUIRIES:
Mrs Carmen Gopane; Spokesperson of the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature
Landline 053 839 8090
Mobile 078 803 6046

This presents an opportune moment to reflect on the capacities of municipalities to fulfil their new and existing climate change-related mandates and on the opportunities that cross-sectoral collaboration can bring to collaborative governance.

Context

Climate Change remains one of the biggest threats to our existence, with the potential to reverse some of our advances in working towards a more just and equitable world.

In a country like South Africa, where too many people are concerned about what to feed their families that evening, it is challenging to build a social compact around climate change, which falsely appears only to be a problem that we have to worry about in the future.

In reality, communities are already experiencing the impacts of climate change regarding access to essential services like water and subsequently sanitation, air and water pollution, exposure to rising temperatures, droughts, fires, and extreme weather events – the list continues. The situation is likely to worsen, especially for communities living in rural areas or already experiencing social exclusions and vulnerabilities.

In this context, the South African climate change policy response has always been developmental in that it envisages new pathways for social and economic growth. Provincial and local governments have essential roles in achieving the country’s climate-related goals and their service delivery and public participation mandates. Considering the status quo of many of our municipalities, this paints a daunting picture.

The climate and development linked response does hold specific opportunities. One of these is facilitating cross-sectoral relationships to unlock resources and expertise in addressing community-driven and climate-related development challenges. Facilitating engagements between Independent Power Producers, Local Governments and Civil Society Organisations around issues within the “climate and development nexus” holds the potential to create space of shared interest and solution orientated thinking while inadvertently supporting good, local governance.

Fostering Inclusive Growth through Climate Change Champions

DWF, through its EU co-funded Climate for Growth project, is seeking to take advantage of this alignment of interest and policy to support local government in addressing social development and their public participation mandates. The project runs in the Northern and Western Cape Provinces until Feb 2024. A project Steering Committee is being set up, which hopes to align with existing local and provincial coordinating structures, and aims to ensure the possibility for replication and roll out.

Since its inception, the project has been conducting climate literacy initiatives with existing and new CSO partners in the provinces. These CSO partners work with vulnerable and at-risk populations, who are likely to be disproportionately affected by climate change. During facilitated knowledge co-creation processes, overlapping issues in local government planning processes will be identified. At the same time, the project will engage with Independent Power Producers representatives working on making meaningful contributions through the SED spend obligations of IPPs.

Through existing democratic avenues or “invited” spaces for public participation, such as those within the various stages of the IPD processes, the project supports relationships and a culture of collaborative governance. The project also co-creates innovative, “invented” spaces where CSOs can engage with public and private decision-makers in a structured and facilitated manner. This can foster co-designed, solution-orientated thinking to prioritise at-risk communities in the climate change response and support cooperative and accountable governance approaches.

Overlapping interests in the Climate and Development Nexus

Independent Power Producers (IPPs) are essential in the country’s ambitions to meet its emission targets.  In SA’s policy, climate change goals are inextricably tied to the country’s economic and social development ambitions. The 2011 Renewable Independent Power Producer Programme (REIPPP) brings additional power onto the grid. Still, it includes a broader mandate related to the national development objectives of job creation, social upliftment and broadening of economic ownership. One of the ways this is promoted is through the Social Economic Development spend requirements of IPPs.

Provincial and local governments share the majority of climate-related mandates in the Constitution, Climate Change Bill and policies. Issues around air pollution (climate change mitigation) and most of the services we rely on daily are assigned to local municipalities. Provinces are meant to provide oversight and coordination. Local government is also envisaged as the critical entry point for communities and private entities to participate in local governance driven interventions with municipal planning, implementation and evaluation processes can foster transparency, sustainability and legitimacy of initiatives.

In many parts of the country, Civil Society Organisations provide many of the services that the government is supposed to provide. CSOs are essential partners in understanding community needs as they are organised around issues affecting their society that are not being addressed. Many CSOs have a keen interest in being directly involved in creating working partnerships, especially at a local government level, where the impacts of governance failures are most acutely felt.

Conclusion 

The potential for climate change to direct new pathways to economic and social development requires working partnerships across the public, private and community sectors. Achieving greater legitimacy, long term sustainability, and system changes need to involve Civil Society Organisations – who are directly working on addressing South Africa’s key developmental challenges – in climate change-related planning and resource allocation processes within the private and public sectors.

The Climate Change Workshop for South African Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) will build on and enrich the various initiatives that DWF has been undertaking over the recent years in strengthening participatory policy and platform development that accurately reflects citizen-identified needs to explicitly include access to clean water and energy and management of these

The Fostering Inclusive Growth through Climate Change Champions project is co-funded by the European Union.

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The Steering Committee is the central platform through which DWF promotes the coordination between private, public and civil society actions. Since the project’s inception, this first meeting will serve introductory and exploratory purposes. In line with the project’s overall theme, the first meeting is centred around community participation in the public and private sectors. The aim is to explore the thematic information gaps and possible partnership opportunities in developing more significant insights and understanding of participatory climate change-related policy-making and private sector investment decisions.

Broadly the Steering Committee meeting is aimed at:

• Guiding information management and research
• Developing a Communication and Dissemination strategy
• Supporting participatory development of mandated climate change policy

The various ideas raised in discussions since the project’s inception will be presented and unpacked in more detail. The aim is to build consensus around if and how to explore the identified research gaps further and map out potential lead partners and collaborators in the renewable energy, governance and development areas.

Thematic focus:

“Integrating community priorities into municipal integrated development planning, and the socio-economic development (SED) investments of independent power producers (IPPs) – what are the opportunities, what are the challenges and what are the gaps in information?”

Look out for updates and the next steps ascertained from the meeting on our website and social media pages.

The workshop is the second cross-provincial knowledge co-creation initiative, following The National Climate Change workshop series that took place from the 24^th to the 26^th of May 2022. The latest three days of engagement will broadly cover two interrelated themes: Strategic communication & Negotiations and The Role of Partnerships between Local Government and Civil Society in the “Just Transition”.

Based on feedback since the first engagement, DWF has crafted the programme with the following outcomes in mind:

1. Refresh learnings on climate change, climate change literacy and ecological justice
2. Gain a deeper understanding of engagements since the first workshop
3. Develop Media & Communication as well as Negotiations & Advocacy strategies directed at local government, private sector, media and communities
4. Understand the overarching policy directive of the “Just Transition”, in which climate change responses and development initiatives are inextricably related.
5. Identify opportunities to plug strategies in government decision-making processes
6. Co-design follow-up and support processes with the mentoring and coaching team
7. Explore and establish networks around common interests

A team of experts has been established to deliver an interactive and participatory programme. We have partnered with RIA Digital Media, a South African digital, media & film company which supports public figures, campaigns, and institutions through advisory services. The RIA team will guide participants in developing tailor-made communications and negotiation strategies. Rehad Desai, an independent, award-winning filmmaker who recently completed “Temperature Rising”, will host the Climate Change Champions Movie Evening for an invite-only preview of his unreleased documentary followed by a Question and Answer Session.

Sysman Motloung and Dr Frank G. Lekaba are seasoned coaches with extensive experience supporting civil society actors and organisations in their advocacy journeys. With this team, participants will have an opportunity to co-design the mentoring and coaching process requested throughout the feedback sessions. Michael Gerard, climate finance, investment strategy and sustainable development expert, will share insights into the “Just Transition” policy directive. His engagement will help deepen the understanding of the roles of civil society and local government in ensuring that development and climate change responses go hand in hand.

We also look forward to hearing from our project partners about what they have done since the last workshop and co-design strategies that can assist them with the invaluable work they already provide in their communities.

To align further our value of sustainability and digitisation, we will be limiting the printing of documents during the workshop.

About The Fostering Inclusive Growth Through Climate Change Champions Project

The Fostering Inclusive Growth Through Climate Change Champions, known as the  “Climate for Growth project”, aims to empower communities to effectively identify and respond to how climate change impacts development priorities within communities and integrate the community’s development priorities into local government planning and resource allocation. The project is co-funded by the European Union and runs from March 2021 until February 2024 in the Northern Cape and Western Cape provinces of South Africa.

To follow the programmes of the DWF, please like, follow, and subscribe to the following channels:

Facebook | Twitter | YouTube  | LinkedIn

The workshop is implemented under The Fostering Inclusive Growth Through Climate Change Champions, known as the “Climate for Growth project”. The project aims to create and support partnerships between local governments, civil society organisations and Independent Power Producers. These partnerships are directed towards collaborating to address some of the challenges that communities face. Through a knowledge co-creation process, the project supports the integration of those challenges into local government and private sector planning and resource allocation. The project is co-funded by the European Union and runs from March 2021 until February 2024 in the Northern Cape and Western Cape provinces of South Africa.

The Municipal Workshop runs at the same time as the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP 27), where world leaders met to discuss how to effectively tackle the global challenge of climate change. The global and national policy responses place local governments and communities at the forefront of the climate change response. This workshop, therefore, seeks to build relationships with municipalities to develop localised and community-driven climate change response plans.

Since the project’s inception, the team has gained insights into the political landscape in the target municipalities and key stakeholders. This is with a view to supporting local government public participation initiatives, aligning available private sector development opportunities to community needs, and ensuring that available public participation opportunities can be used to facilitate dialogues on climate change impacts while improving relations between local government, civil society actors and Independent Power Producers.

Background to Workshop

The workshop invited participants from each of the target municipalities, comprising staff members working in the areas of Local Economic Development, Environmental Affairs, Independent Development Planning (IDP) office (including those in charge of facilitating public participation), and staff from the office of the speaker responsible for public outreach and education.

Mission and Objectives

1. Municipality stakeholder’s project onboarding
2. Understanding desired support in climate change literacy, Communications and Municipal planning
3. Supporting municipalities in the communications and negotiation efforts with communities and private sector parties
4. Reflecting on current public participation and relations with Independent Power Producers as well as communities
5. Climate change decision-making, policy planning and strategic communication training

“The climate change discourse often uses language that alienates grassroots civil society and local government representatives. The knowledge co-creation approach is important because it develops a localised understanding of climate change causes, impacts and effects. This is essential for us to understand how partnership and collaboration can support community resilience, promote development and climate change action.” Mira Dutschke SA Programme Manager

A team of experts has been established to deliver an interactive and participatory programme to co-create knowledge around the roles of local government in ensuring that development and climate change responses go hand in hand.