South Africa Metro Investments Private Participation

As part of an engagement with the World Bank Cities Resilience Program and the National Treasury of South Africa, and in partnership with local public policy consulting firm PDG, HR&A helped seven South African metropolitan governments advance a suite of nine resilient infrastructure and renewable energy projects, including stormwater management, river catchment rehabilitation, energy storage, and waste management.

HR&A led engagements with three South African metropolitan governments—Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg, and Tshwane, with a total combined population of over 10 million people—that straddle the Kaalspruit River catchment, a watershed known for poor water quality and worsening flooding that demands a joint, trans-metropolitan approach to monitoring, problem-solving, investment, and maintenance. HR&A provided a comprehensive set of services to help advance a suite of stormwater management and climate resilience infrastructure projects. To advance a trans-metropolitan governance approach to improve water quality and reduce flooding in the shared watershed, HR&A studied various international approaches to trans-boundary waterbody management and facilitated a workshop with leadership from all three metros that built consensus around a potential way forward.
 

HR&A worked with the City of Cape Town, the second largest in the country with 3.7 million residents, on developing methodologies to assess the feasibility of land value capture to support development of flood mitigation infrastructure, for projects located in Cape Town’s City Centre and Heidelberg districts. HR&A evaluated the potential of revenues from property taxes, development charges, and special assessment zones, and developed an implementation and governance plan, with recommendations to incorporate these funding sources into Cape Town’s existing capital planning processes.

HR&A supported the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality with the planning and feasibility analysis to create a residential-focused mixed-use development on a 700-hectare site near the Bloemfontein Airport. HR&A worked with four city agencies to help develop shared project goals, a market demand analysis, and a financial model to assess the feasibility of land value capture to support new mixed-use development, as well as infrastructure improvements to rehabilitate the flood-prone area.

As part of this assignment, HR&A deployed multiple GIS dashboards and webtools to present information, assist conversations, and perform geo-spatial analysis for identifying sites to test for resilience projects and help integrate broader equity considerations into future metropolitan policy and capital planning.

HR&A also helped plan and facilitate two two-day workshops with over 12 hours of content each disseminating knowledge, takeaways, and best practices on funding, financing, and delivering resilient and climate infrastructure with over 50 government officials from the South African metros.