Maintaining a city against nature: Climate adaptation in Beira

The port city of Beira, on Mozambique’s Indian Ocean coast, was devastated by Tropical Cyclone Idai in March 2019. Ever since, a host of unequal international and national actors have been wrangling about the best forms to 'build back better', with uneven and socially and spatially unequally distributed results. The institutional set-up and concomitant challenges of making adaptation work are described in a context where the pressures of both growth-based development and climate change mitigation are particularly manifest. In particular, the tensions are explored between political and economic imperatives and the seemingly apolitical, technical best practices advanced by Mozambique’s bi-and multilateral donor partners, as well as the complex infrastructural and economic interdependencies that condition urban planning and development. Through this, the very real constraints of transitioning to climate-resilient cities are demonstrated, along with how most of what turns a climate event into a human disaster sits within highly unequal social, political and economic systems. POLICY RELEVANCE Empirical, ethnographic material gathered from the post-cyclone reconstruction process in Beira, Mozambique, shows how institutional complexities and political rivalry limit the possibilities of reconstruction. These organisational issues impact more than technical or financial challenges. 'Best practices' of 'building back better' are almost rendered moot by socio-economic and political constraints, revealing the substantial challenges of implementing large-scale, technically 'best practice' reconstruction programmes. The analysis of the factors that contributed to making Cyclone Idai such a calamitous event holds important lessons for climate adaptation and disaster reconstruction in coastal cities, especially for those operating in challenging political and economic conditions.