Municipal finance and resilience lessons for urban infrastructure management: a case study from the Cape Town drought

Abstract

At a time when flows of both water and finances were severely curtailed, this article explores the public and private adaptation actions which played out during Cape Town's drought which produced a 'shock within a shock' on the municipality's budget (2016-2018), this article provides a detailed and embedded account of the severity, urgency and complexity of the challenges that decision makers are faced with during such unanticipated events. Shifts in approaches are identified and traced through budget allocations to display uncharted governance arrangements which, although stabilising, present novel finance and governance challenges amidst altered resource and operating conditions. Reflecting on observed shifts and shock to the municipal budget, the article highlights the challenge of an uncoordinated response between public and private actors that aim to secure highreliability service delivery. Reflecting on the findings, recommendations outline resilience qualities necessary to municipal budgets through sketching contextually reflective questions for municipal financing models.

A framework for complex climate change risk assessment

“…105 Responses became increasingly urgent in early 2018 as the potential of a ''day zero'' event became possible, the point at which a city of four million people might run out of water. 106 The risk of day zero was anticipated to cascade to affect risks to health, economic output, and security. A whole-of-society response was called for from public and private actors as the local government's capability to manage the drought response was stretched to its limit.…”

“…A whole-of-society response was called for from public and private actors as the local government's capability to manage the drought response was stretched to its limit. 106 The responses by different groups interacted to generate risks to municipal finance. In particular, as elites invested in private, off-grid water supplies, 105,107 risk of reduced municipal revenue collections from newly off-grid households aggregated with risk of reduced tourism, 106 increasing risk to the reputation of the incumbent administration.…”

COVID-19 and the call for ‘Safe Hands’: Challenges facing the under-resourced municipalities that lack potable water access - A case study of Chitungwiza municipality, Zimbabwe

“…Policies that allow sustainable water resources development and their implementation are also vital in regions lacking water access ( Haddout et al., 2020 ). In order to effectively change the status quo, decision makers and municipalities require conceptual and operational shifts in ways of doing things ( Simpson et al., 2019b ), including but not limited to, inter-governmental cooperation and management ( Rodina, 2019 ), financial planning that anticipates disruptive shocks to municipal budgets ( Simpson et al., 2019c ), alternative supplies development ( Olivier and Xu, 2019 ) and enhanced crisis communication ( Booysen et al., 2019 ).…”

The emergence of collectively owned self-supply water supply systems in rural South Africa – what can we learn from the Tshakhuma case in Limpopo?

“…At the same time the demand for water from public supplies was reduced from 1 200 ML/day (megalitres of water per day) in 2015, to 526 ML/day in mid-February 2018, with especially large users reducing their consumption (Simpson et al, 2019). Since in the South African tariff system the consumers with high abstractions cross-subsidise the services to the poor (DWAF, 2002), this development created immense financial issues for the public service delivery of the City of Cape town (Simpson et al, 2019). At the same time some of the wealthiest households went off-grid and continued to use large quantities of water (Taing et al, 2019;Oomen, 2021).…”