If you have just moved into the cities of Cape Town, Maputo, Lusaka or Windhoek, you have become part of the problem. A big driver of climate change is urbanization and scientists say these four African cities are at the top of the list.
That was one reason why 2016 ranked as the hottest year on record, according to data analyzed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the United Nations’ authoritative voice on weather, climate and water.
One of the leading causes of this is carbon dioxide and methane concentrations from burning fossil fuels, which surged to new records, claims the WMO. This based on evidence from the likes of NASA, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, UK-based Met Office Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit.
The world’s cities are responsible for 60% of all carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases while occupying just 2% of Earth’s surface, according to the United Nations Human Settlement Programme.
It means, unless humans find ways of reducing their carbon emissions, worse is yet to come.
Climate change, according to the South African Weather Service, is the natural cycle which the earth and its atmosphere experience from energy received from the sun. The climate goes through warm and cold periods, taking hundreds of years to complete one cycle. The changes also influence rainfall, but the biosphere is able to adapt to a changing climate if these changes take place over centuries.
As many as 100 million people could slide into extreme poverty because of rising temperatures, which are caused by greenhouse gas emissions, the World Bank reports.  It also says climate change has led to crop failures, natural disasters, higher food prices and the spread of waterborne diseases, creating poverty and pushing people at risk into destitution.
In 2015, the UN, in its report on climate change, noted that it is expected to cause shorter growing seasons and force large tracts of peripheral agriculture out of production. Without action, climate change would likely spark higher agricultural prices and could threaten food security in poorer regions such as sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Climate variability is also at play.
This year has been aggravated by El Nino, a Pacific Ocean weather pattern which decreases moisture in the sub-Saharan region and causes other extreme weather patterns.
Examples of climate variability could be seen in Cape Town in March; a disaster was declared by authorities as dam levels dropped to 31.5%. At the time of going to print, the city estimated that it had 105 days of useable water left. Meanwhile, in Mozambique and Madagascar, countries lying just north and east of South Africa, the category four tropical cyclone Enawo hit. The cyclone, which ravaged their coastlines with winds of 190 kilometers per hour, was dubbed the most destructive storm in years.
The next problem is how people deal with it.
A large group of people within the FRACTAL project, led by the Climate System Analysis Group (CSAG) at the University of Cape Town (UCT), is trying to tackle the problems associated with climate change in cities through novel approaches.
“We need to move away from the ‘sausage machine’ type of model whereby climate data is produced on one end by scientists, then follows a path to be spat out at the end to decision makers who are expected to use the data. Decision makers need to be engaged in the process of producing relevant climate knowledge from the beginning.”
So says Alice McClure, the coordinator of the Future Resilience for African CiTies and Lands (FRACTAL), a four-year project that aims to build relationships between scientists, practitioners, and the people whose elected representatives decide what’s best for the city.
“In this process, science should not be king. We argue that the knowledge that decision makers in the cities have is more relevant than the information the scientist is going to produce. For the purpose of decision making, scientists can produce as much rigorous climate data as they want, but the uptake of climate information and eventual impact that it might have, is undermined without considerations of context,” says McClure.
Started in 2015, FRACTAL is working in nine cities: Blantyre, Gaborone, Harare, Lusaka, Maputo and Windhoek. Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa have joined the program as self-funded cities.
FRACTAL is part of an initiative called Future Climate Change for Africa, which runs five projects to understand Africa better during climate change and integrates this into decision making.
FRACTAL’s approach enables particular issues, focused on water and energy, to be identified in each of the cities in which it is working, for which relevant and significant climate knowledge can be produced by scientists and decision makers.
What is becoming evident through the initial engagements is that each city has its own problems. For example, in Maputo issues associated with potable water, drainage and sanitation have surfaced, while in Lusaka groundwater recharge, drinking water, flooding and solid waste in peri-urban areas surfaced as pertinent issues.
“We need to understand the region within which the city is located, and how this might affect resources in the city, such as energy and water. For example, Lusaka is located within the Kafue river basin. So we need to understand how changes in the broader surface water system &#8211; as a result of climate or other non-climate drivers &#8211; might affect water supply in Lusaka. City-regions are very integrated, complex systems with multiple actors, stressors and scales. We need to have a deep understanding of the city-region context to understand what climate information might be relevant and significant.”
As part of the project, FRACTAL has embedded researchers into offices in the cities to gain a better understanding of how governments work. The idea is that the work undertaken by these researchers is mutually beneficial for the city officials and the researchers working on the project.
“The scientists are learning about the city-region and the decision makers are learning about climate variability and change. Together, we would like to build an understanding of what climate change might look like in the future in each city.”
It means cities need to come up with tangible solutions that can adapt to the next 40 years of increasing droughts and stronger typhoons in the face of growing cities.

Africa Is Heating Up  And Not In A Good Way

It was a warm, autumn evening; most of Windhoek had gone to bed early, as usual. On this night of socialites and fashionistas, fashion designers came together with musicians for an evening of wow.
Eyambukepo—meaning uprising in Oshiambo—was just that, standing tall for Africa.
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“I believe that it’s events like these that show the world what we, the youth, are about,” says Richard ‘KingRich’ Namwandi, owner of record label Bay Area Music, whose team founded the show  with Shewta Wahi, a Dubai-based designer.
This night of color and dash was a sign of changing times in the once sleepy Windhoek. Everywhere you look in the burgeoning capital city—with a population of 320,000—are construction sites and signs of growth.
“With Namibia being a relatively young country—independent for 23 years—it’s understandable why we are still in the process of breaking into international industries and markets on many fronts. However, entertainment doesn’t seem to be one of those anymore. The Namibian music scene has become very vibrant […] The fashion industry is growing at a similarly impressive pace. Last year, we had our first ever Namibian Fashion Show, which saw designers from all over Africa showcasing their designs alongside four Namibian designers,” says KingRich.
The line-up included the latest in musical talent and catwalk creations.
Hafeni ‘Happy’ Fransalso presented black and white evening wear with paisley details to applause. The College of the Arts Namibia graduate majored in fashion and design, visual arts and crafts. His collection of mens and womenswear included burnt orange and yellow fabric with geometric designs and fashionably oversized accessories. Happy, as he is known, is currently creating a line of accessories made from recycled materials.
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The greatest challenge to Namibia’s fashion industry, he feels, is the lack of home-grown fashion magazines.
“These challenges can be overcome when people realize and see the potential in fashion, not only as an industry to make money and look good but as an art,” he says.
That evening the catwalk was also home to Namibia’s rising singers, rappers, kwaito and R&amp;B performers, from Blossom and Beast to KevyGuy and Brain The Tool.
The most popular was Ruusa Ndapewa Munalye, known as Blossom. This soulful singer was nominated in 12 categories at the Namibian Annual Music Awards (NAMAs) and was named Namibia’s Best Female Artist of 2013. She scooped three other awards including: Best Kizomba; Best Newcomer and Best Shambo.
“My music reflects what is most close to my heart—messages of my roots, love, hope, and freedom,” she says.
The award-winning guitarist has performed in the United States and is touring Europe.
“The fashion show was great as it brings growth and exposure to the Namibian fashion industry. The mix of music and fashion strengthens the display of these great creations,” she says.
There is synergy between the two art forms.
“I believe as an artist, personally, that your style has to be top every time you come out. If you want to maintain an image, if you want people to respect you for your certain image, you have to be fashionable at all times. I believe they are one and the same at the end of the day,” says KingRich, who performed that night.
The sub-Saharan African country has been host to other large-scale fashion shows, as the tough-to-crack industry grows.
“The Namibian market in fashion only really started in the last two or three years, where you can actually do fashion shows like this, showcase your creativity and see how far you can push the barrier […]” says Tsatago Garoëb.
The 30-year-old happened upon his flair for fashion in high school, when he designed his sister’s graduation dress. Garoëb studied fashion and textile design at the University of Namibia. Today, he owns a fashion label—House of Tsatago, also known as H.O.T—which has dressed numerous Namibian celebrities.
His adventurous style lives through his eccentric dresses; after all, he was an assistant to David Tlale—an award-winning South African designer—during last year’s Namibian Fashion Show. Garoëb tests the boundaries because that is what fashion is about.
“I wanted to play with fabric. I wanted it to be fun, which is why I used chiffon, because it is free moving. And I wanted to incorporate fabrics like lace because it’s quite transparent and very dangerous but this accentuates a woman’s beauty. I wanted whoever is wearing my garments to feel free, beautiful and sexy, hence why I called this collection ‘hot, hot, hot’ because all of my garments were pretty hot,” he says.
The final collection, with an African feel to it, came from Shweta Wahi. It drew a standing ovation.
While other 10-year-old girls were playing with dolls, Wahi was sewing.
“For every birthday I would ask for a sewing machine or a mannequin or something to do with stitching or fabrics,” she says.
The self-taught 22-year-old—who has an eponymous fashion label—had featured in as many fashion shows as her years. This was the first of many more to come in Africa for the Indian-born designer, who was raised in Dubai and studied in Canada.
Wahi was the youngest designer at Ottawa Fashion Week in 2012 and has also showcased on the Toronto and Dubai fashion circuits.
“When you show up and people see that you are a young girl, they feel that you might be working for the person who is supposed to show up. They find it a little difficult to take you seriously, until they see your work coming down the catwalk,” she says.
Wahi interned for the winner of the first season of Project Runway Canada, Evan Biddell, who is also self-taught. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in visual arts at York University and qualified as an image consultant at George Brown College.
“When I start cutting the fabric, I don’t use technical patterns, because I never studied fashion at school. There is a dialogue between me and the fabric, and I drape it around a mannequin and just nip and tuck where I feel it fits […] If something goes wrong, there is always a way to fix it, you make it look like a beautiful mistake,” she says.
Her advice to aspiring fashion designers?
“I definitely think marketing has a lot to do with it and it depends on how you market your label because you have so many talented artists out there. I’ve seen so many people who are amazingly passionate and they can’t get their label out there; they can’t get the exposure they deserve. If they brush up on their business skills and maybe find a business partner and collaborate on marketing they can definitely have a sustainable business.”
But it’s not just about profit, Wahi has used her talents to raise over C$50,000 ($48,000) for charitable organizations such as the Canadian Red Cross and Haiti Relief Fund, to name a few.
This is only the beginning for Eyambukepo, it will return to a different country in Africa each year, and hopes to grace the catwalks of the world’s fashion capitals.

Tonight Windhoek,  Tomorrow the World

For three aspiring engineers, our wheels of choice were 150cc Big Boy Scooters. At the start line, in the city of gold, we joined 60 other like-minded crews on a journey labeled as Africa’s greatest social rally—the Put Foot Rally.
The expedition, onboard our three stallions, would take us 7,000 kilometers, through seven countries and six border checkpoints, in 21 days, all in support of Project Rhino KwaZulu-Natal. The rally’s intention is simple: to catapult adventurous spirits into their backyard and in the footsteps of David Livingstone. We set out to prove that Southern Africa can be explored on any wheels you choose.
<div id="attachment_1394" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1394" class="size-medium wp-image-1394" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/P7030297-300x219.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="219" />Our Scooters parked on the beach at Senga Bay Lake Malawi</div>
With frozen fingers, James, Matt and I waved at encouraging hoots, as we cleared Jo’burg on a chilly winter’s morning. Finally, we hit the open road, full steam ahead at 70km an hour, and made our way to the first border post into Botswana. Our first taste of open road biking included: dodging suicidal flamingos and angry ostriches as well as the odd elephant—something extraordinary when on two wheels. For the first couple of days, as we rode towards Etosha National Park, our morning sessions were split into 30km stints interspersed with star-jumps on the open road and warming our hands on the exhaust pipe.
Traveling up to 700km a day, meant we arose early; behind the fog and cold came daybreak, which brought new surprises perched on the horizon.
Out in the wild, we had to constantly monitor our fuel situation. Fuel is gold and with a range of 200km we were bound to run out, somewhere along our adventure. This happened in Namibia en route to Windhoek. With two scooters curb-bound, James slipstreamed a 18-wheeler truck for 40km and returned with a couple of liters.
We learnt that poor navigation in the middle of the night is all part of the experience. The excited faces, accompanied with cold beers, at the checkpoints were moments of accomplishment. These checkpoint parties consisted of a 300-strong group dressed in anything from animal print to luminous polyester, where many a story were shared from the days’ travels.
Desert evolved into mountains, which turned into grasslands and we had made the first leg of the journey to Etosha Park. There are some roads that make your heart beat fast and others that take your breath away. Perhaps the greatest part of riding across Africa is that you see every rolling hill, every river crossing and every bustling village. We learnt to have conversations, while riding, without saying a word and there were many humorous moments while shepherding Matt—who before this trip had never ridden a scooter.
Riding through the Caprivi Strip towards Livingstone was quite an experience. With only a couple of shirts and a Leatherman, we were often invited to dine with hospitable locals. Here the spirit of Ubuntu is real. After breaking down 80 kilometers out of Grootfontein, we hitched a ride back to town in a copper truck, negotiated accommodation in exchange for three beers and had our scooters serviced by a resident mechanic for free. Within one day we were back on the road in Livingstone, Zambia.
Not only does the Put Foot Rally give travellers the opportunity to explore some of Southern Africa’s most beautiful spots but it also facilitates fundraising for a great cause. The crews raised R560,000 ($65,000), which was used to buy 450 new pairs of school shoes for schoolchildren in Livingstone. It also created awareness and raised funds to help fight rhino poaching through Project Rhino.
We had cruised the Kavango, traveled the entire interior of Namibia and enjoyed the crisp taste of a Mosi on the banks of the Zambezi River. On entering Zimbabwe the beaten track led us towards Kariba Dam. We hopped onto a ferry and had a full day of downtime, much of which was spent sipping on Lion Lager and snacking on Kapenta (Tanganyika sardines). Well refreshed, we made our way to colorful Malawi and rode hugging the ‘Lake of Stars’.
Exploring the fleamarket-style villages by scooter was an experience. Traffic was always a breeze and the interest we received from people gave us an opportunity to learn hidden secrets about the country.
A conversation was bound to be fired up at every pit stop, especially with police officials, who asked how we managed to pack everything including a golf club. Officials let us through every roadblock or border post, laughing ‘Hah, silly Mlungus’, a reminder that when traveling Africa always remember to pack a sense of humor.
Next, we rode southwards into Mozambique, which presented us with unique landscapes. The bright lights of Teté; long, white beaches of Vilanculos; the historical architecture and the waving coconut trees of Inhambane made for an atmosphere like no other. As we cruised to Barra lodge, the idyllic finish line of our scooter odyssey, the realization hit that while not everything had gone our way—breakdowns led to nights on the side of the road and a couple of tumbles had depleted spirits—Africa and her people always seem to provide. Traveling across Southern Africa by scooter gave us the chance to take it slow and travel uninhibited. The rally gave us the chance to bond and give back to communities and conservation.
Go ride, Africa is more accessible than you think.

Tag: Windhoek

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Tonight Windhoek, Tomorrow the World

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