M
ORE than 100 delegates from nine countries will gather in Jeffreys Bay this October for an internatio-nal climate change workshop.
Set to take place at Mentorskraal Country Estate from October 9 to 11, the workshop will bring together representatives from Germany, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Peru, Ecuador and Nicaragua for discussions on how municipalities can safeguard their communities from the potentially devastating impact of climate change.
Executive Mayor Horatio Hendricks said Kouga Municipality was honoured to have been selected to host the workshop.
“We were one of three African and South American municipalities under consideration and are thrilled to have been chosen,” he said.
The workshop is a continuation of Kouga’s climate change partnership with the German municipality Ilsfeld.
Twelve German municipalities and their respective partners from Africa and South America will be in attendance. Two South African municipalities, Kouga and the Alfred Nzo District Municipality, also from the Eastern Cape, will be among the delegates.
Hendricks said the purpose of the workshop was for the partner municipalities to present the joint programmes of action they have been working on since the kick-off confe-rence in Germany in October 2017.
“It will serve as a platform for municipalities from different parts of the world to learn from each other’s shared experiences and to unlock potential funding for projects aimed at minimi-sing the impact of climate change on local communities.”
He said special focus would also fall on Kouga, as the host municipality, with the delegates set to visit climate change hotspots in the region.
The partnership programme is being spearheaded by Global Engagement’s Service Agency Communities in One World (SKEW), a unit specialising in cooperative local development, together with an amalgamation of stakeholders called the Landesarbeidtsgemeinschaft Agenda 21 NRW. It is funded by Germany’s Federal Mi-nistry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BZN).
