Nature Positive Cities Efforts to Advance the Transition Durban 2024

2 Assessment of enabling environment2.4 Financing Overview The public budget represents the main source of funding for nature-related and climate-change adaptation projects. In the 2021-2022 financial year, Durban spent ZAR 22.2 million (South African rand) ($1.2 million) on management programmes such as fire and invasive species control and ZAR 650,000 ($35,000) on land acquisition programmes.18 This represented just 0.05% of the city’s total operating budget for 2021-2022 of ZAR 47 billion.19 Climate-change spending has been higher – it represented between 0.33% and 1.12% of the annual budget between 2008 and 2014.20 Durban occasionally uses international funding and technical support for specific initiatives. It developed its Climate Action Plan with the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and its Resilience Strategy with the Resilient Cities Network. The city has also implemented restoration activities with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and C40 Cities.While finance from multilateral development banks (MDBs) is limited, previous work with the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) has been conducted to obtain funding for community reforestation projects such as at the Buffelsdraai landfill site. Attendance of African Natural Capital Alliance (ANCA) meetings has increased the number of touchpoints between the municipality and banks such as the DBSA and Nedbank. The city has also received grant funding from private-sector entities through a biodiversity offset fund. Budget allocation Finance allocation is done on a project-by-project basis and is largely opportunistic. A prioritization framework was developed, however, to identify which projects are critical to finance. The prioritization framework represents an opportunity for programmes to demonstrate to financing bodies the importance of providing funding for conservation and land management. The programmes can also indicate expected cost and value. Durban has determined criteria for allocating budget to the programmes for land acquisition and the control of fire and invasive species:Land acquisition Control of alien speciesConnectivity to other areas Availability of willing sellers Level of invasiveness Proximity to important catchment areasImpact on local communities or strategic intrastructureD'MOSS data1 12 23 3FIGURE 4 eThekwini Municipality budget allocation criteria Nature Positive: Cities’ Efforts to Advance the Transition 27