Multilevel governance and Coproduction in urban Flood-risk management - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 132

enforcement of plans and laws and local encounters; and, finally, institutional
fragmentation across sector lines (see Vedeld et al. 2012). At the root of these
problems is the inability of urban authorities to govern inequality and informality
in land management and provide low-cost housing in secure sites as part of the
urban change processes: a lack of capability to tackle social dimensions .
Public officials from different urban development agencies are ambivalent
in their responses and do not always act in concert with the political system.
Planners and water engineers tend to discourage or not actively encourage local
contributions to service delivery and flood-risk management. This undermines
trust and has major negative implications for the mobilization of local resources
and possible synergies in development (Sorensen and Torfing 2014; Osborne
2010; Ostrom 1996). We see the failure of public officials to enhance coproduction
within the system of multilevel governance as a decisive factor in explaining the weak
integration of adaptation and flood risks in municipal governance at city and
community levels.
We also hold that the relative efficiency in local participation and thus in
coproduction depends on a certain community capacity and agency , as measured,
for instance, in terms of the density of local associations or social organization
at the sub-ward levels (Vedeld et al. 2012; Ostrom 2005). Although the density
of NGOs did not seem high, we found various types of local-level community
groups, with possibly untapped time and resources, which are not mobilized
actively and systematically by local officials today. Community involvement in
adaptation is an essential part of any process that seeks to build resilience or to
overcome forms of structural inequalities (Bulkeley 2013). Especially regarding
cities in developing countries, many have stressed the importance of local
governance for management of water and land, and development - not least
given the extreme financial constraints faced by governments (Satterthwaite
2011; Bicknell et al. 2010; Ostrom 1996). For example, de Sardan (2011) has
identified at least eight modes of local governance in countries in West Africa
(see also Booth 2011; Crook and Booth 2011; Crook 2010).
We argue that political factors should be taken into consideration when
analysing the integration of flood-risk management in local governance. Political
factors are important for explaining why and how people are allowed to settle in
unplanned and risky sites. However, political factors impact in different manners,
and can work both against the interests of local people (more floods, land loss)
and in support of their interests (protection of land and assets). This may indicate
that political factors become decisive once important decisions are on the agenda
about the governance of local conflicts, or when decisions are to be taken about
important infrastructural investments aimed at addressing climate vulnerability
and inequality (Bulkeley 2013; Pelling 2011). But political factors need not be a
decisive factor for getting incremental adaptation going, as the case of Durban in
South African has shown (Roberts and O'Donoghue 2013).
Finally, the municipality of Kinondoni is operating under extreme financial
constraints at city and sub-city levels. Financial constraints are most pronounced