The chapter explores the possibilities and barriers for integrating climate change adaptation into urban development and planning in the case study cities of Dar es Salaam and Addis Ababa. It identifies adaptation measures in collaboration with stakeholders that are meaningful and need urgent attention across various parts of the urban governance system and discusses possible pathways towards increased city resilience.

The study shows that only limited momentum exists among city stakeholders for a broad citywide adaptation strategy addressing the complexity of climate change impacts in both case study cities. This is – for the time being – due to inability to address all measures relevant for making the cities resilient as several more urgent issues, such as rapid urbanisation and poverty, take precedence among stakeholders. Therefore, a more incremental approach of addressing the most pressing matters that can mobilise a range of stakeholders and create synergistic effects with other critical urban problems needs to be prioritised. Such projects can furthermore create knowledge and relations between important actors and institutions.

In Addis Ababa, the project that stakeholders could support and that could address the immediate flooding and drought problems of the poor was ‘integrated water management’, a citywide approach based on the common interests and possible synergies across city sectors and levels for better water management. In Dar es Salaam, the governance system appears to be too fragmented to drive a similar institutionally-led adaptation effort. Here ‘integrated local projects’ in the most vulnerable areas addressing land management, upgrading and livelihood projects generate most resonance among stakeholders.