Legal and policy frameworks to harmonise and mainstream climate and disaster resilience options into municipality integrated development plans: A case of Zambia

Climate change adaptation, mitigation (CCA-M), and climate-related disaster risk reduction (DRR) have more synergies than discords that needs harnessing and mainstreaming into developmental practice. Municipalities are considered best-equipped extension of governments to harmonise and mainstream these two developmental interventions. However, municipalities require harmonised legal, policy and other enablers to effectively streamline and mainstream these two developmental options into development planning. This paper uses summative content analysis and exclusive use of secondary data to review the extent to which the Zambian government in the Global South has tried to undertake three significant modifications, namely: (1) harmonise newly formulated legislation, policy frameworks and enablers post year 2015, that relate to CCA-M, DRR and municipality Integrated Development Plans (IDPs), (2) promote the streamlining of CCA-M and climate-related DRR conceptually and (3) promote the mainstreaming of these two harmonised concepts and practices into municipality IDP through the revised legal, policy frameworks and enablers. The results shows that, there is little activity to harmonise legislation, policy frameworks, enablers that relate to CCA-M, DRR and municipality IDPs. There is equally little activity to encourage conceptual harmonisation of CCA-M and DRR at practice level. Finally, there is little activity by government to conceptually promote the mainstreaming of these two concepts in unison into municipality IDPs. Nevertheless, there is good political will and international donor support for this mainstreaming agenda, in general, for CCA and CCM as singular developmental options into the public sectors. This is not the case regarding harmonisation with DRR.