GCRO participates in ICLEI’s LoCS4AFRICA congress

  • GCRO
  • Date of publication: 31 March 2017

From 22-24 March 2017, ICLEI Africa hosted the Local Climate Solutions for Africa (LoCS4Africa) 2017 congress in Ekurhuleni. The congress brought together academics and practitioners from a range of African cities to share and develop strategies to address a range of water and climate-related challenges. GCRO participated extensively in the congress through both hosting and participating in various sessions.

GCRO hosted a session entitled ‘Green infrastructure in African Cities’ that explored the potential and existing role of green infrastructure (GI) to meet the growing demand for urban infrastructure and services in cities while ensuring and enhancing the proper functioning of urban ecological systems. The session drew on insights from different cities about their attempts at using GI within planning and implementation. GCRO’s Gillian Maree facilitated the session, which included the following speakers: Lemson Betha (WESSA), Christina Culwick (GCRO), Jeremy Gilbert (CSIR), Patrick O’Farrell (CSIR) and Sangwata Manyike (SANBI).

During the session GCRO reflected on its GI research, which aims to influence Gauteng’s approach to green asset management and by demonstrating ways to incorporate GI within government budgeting and planning processes. The session concluded by profiling the GCRO’s fourth Research Report, A framework for a GI planning approach in the GCR.

The session was also used to release an explainer video on 'Green infrastructure in the Gauteng City-Region', which is aimed at enhancing the accessibility of research beyond academia. This explainer video on ‘Green Infrastructure in the Gauteng City-Region’ provides an introduction to the concept and value of green infrastructure and builds on the GCRO’s ongoing Green Assets & Infrastructure project.


Gillian Maree was also a panellist on the session entitled ‘Climate Solutions through Integrated Urban Planning and Development’, and Christina Culwick presented an overview of Gauteng and Ekurhuleni in the ‘Host City Session’.

To find out more about the congress, download the highlights report here.

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