Participation and planning for climate change: lessons from an experimental project in Maputo, Mozambique

Abstract

There is a growing recognition of the important role that citizens can play in developing and implementing climate change action, whether this is through existing institutions and formal channels of action or, if these are absent, in an ad hoc manner. Calls for sustainability science to include contextual knowledge and transdisciplinary perspectives that take into account the complexity of climate change challenges suggest that there is a need to rethink the role that citizens can play in climate change. Building on the growing tradition of collaborative planning, participatory planning can engage with citizens in a collective process of rethinking ‘the city’ in a context of climate change. The project ‘Public, Private, People Partnerships for Climate Compatible Development’ (4PCCD) in Maputo, Mozambique, developed participatory planning methods to foster partnerships between actors within different sectors in order to tackle climate change through actions in specific locations in Maputo. The objective was the creation of partnerships that could integrate climate change concerns fully, while at the same time addressing directly the concerns of local residents. This background paper provides an overview of the case of Maputo, specifically the neighbourhood of Chamanculo C in which the project took place