The project will finance various urban resilience activities in the city. Investments will be made to manage runoff, improve drainage, stabilize gully walls, and improve natural tree cover to protect the city’s access routes and housing. In the medium and long term, activities will be implemented to address the underlying issues, including improving land management practices, investing in early warning systems, and financing physical infrastructure.

GCA’s support will prioritize and implement various nature-based soil, water, and land management investments that reduce flood, gully erosion, and flood risks to contribute to the resilience of urban environments in Kananga City. Additionally, GCA is developing an action plan to increase the capacity of the government and communities to implement and maintain nature-based solutions and to initiate gender-sensitive, risk-informed local land use planning.

GCA’s technical assistance is part of a regional umbrella support package jointly developed by GCA and the World Bank in five countries in the Congo Basin: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Republic of Congo, Gabon, and Central African Republic. The five countries are characterized by similar contexts and climate vulnerabilities, which creates an opportunity to leverage support across multiple World Bank operations and nurture peer-to-peer learning. The package focuses on mitigating urban gully erosion and urban pluvial and fluvial floods – cross-cutting concerns in the Congo basin exacerbated by climate change.