Examining Climate Resilience Hubs as Mechanisms for Fostering Locally Led Informal Climate Change Governance

Cities constitute sites of climate vulnerability, especially marginalised urban locations like informal settlements. Yet there appears to be an inverse connection between climate vulnerability and governing responsibility. Marginalised urban settlements remain excluded from decisions and subsequently responses that inform and define climate adaptation agendas. This article deploys literature on multi-scalar governance and an adaptive governance framing as theoretical scaffolding to build a case for climate resilience hubs as alternative innovative climate change governance platforms. The article shifts focus from the frequently studied large cities to consider climate resilience hubs from two secondary cities, Bulawayo and Kariba, in Zimbabwe, where climate resilience hubs have been implemented by Slum Dwellers International (SDI) affiliates. The study deploys a qualitative approach and makes two broad arguments. Climate resilience hubs constitute innovative and adaptive governance spaces that facilitate bottom-up engagements with both state and non-state actors, creating the scope for informing and influencing locally led climate actions. Pre-existing social infrastructure associated with SDI processes and practices provides critical institutional machinery for driving climate resilience hubs.