Transforming climate change adaptation in South Africa: Addressing leadership, governance, and community vulnerability through inclusive strategies and effective leadership

The climate change adaptation framework in South Africa encapsulates multi-layered and dimensional strategies encompassing policies, stakeholder engagements, institutional capacity building, resource allocation, research and knowledge sharing. The framework integrates localised planning, resistant infrastructure development, conservation strategies, disaster mitigation, technological innovation and resilient infrastructure. Despite this well-thought-out framework, the adaptation measures do not address the vulnerabilities of risk communities. Using a mixed-method of qualitative and quantitative approach this paper explores the influence of leadership styles in South Africa’s climate change adaptation process, identifies gaps in leadership, structural and institutional barriers hindering the implementation of framework, and explores alternative strategies to enhance its effective execution. The findings established that climate change adaptation frameworks in South Africa face significant weaknesses that include fragmented leadership across government levels, weak accountability mechanisms, constrained capacity and expertise, inadequate community involvement, insufficient funding, a short-term focus, bureaucratic delays, and poor integration of science into policy. This paper suggests that enhancing the implementation of the framework will require a multifaceted and concerted strategy that incorporates various stakeholders, strong political will and commitments, effective governance structures, and capacity building. • This paper provides an overview of the climate change challenges facing South Africa. • The paper explores the current climate change adaptation policies and challenges in their implementation South Africa. • The paper identified compartmentalisation of institutions, leadership gaps structural and short-term over long term solutions. • The paper recommends transformative and innovative strategies in the implementation of adaptation policies.