Building economic resilience to water scarcity: Cape Town’s response to a severe drought

This case study examines Cape Town's response to a severe drought from 2015 to 2018, focusing on the collaborative partnerships established between public and private sectors to maintain economic resilience and avoid a jobs crisis.

• Cape Town faced an unprecedented drought starting in 2015, leading to severe water restrictions by the national Department of Water and Sanitation, including 60% for agriculture and 45% for urban users. The city implemented water demand management and punitive tariff increases for commercial and industrial users, which more than tripled between the start of 2016 and 2018.
• The city faced the prospect of 'Day Zero', a scenario where normal water supply would be cut off to 75% of homes, forcing over one million households to queue for a daily allocation of 25 litres per person. This threat created significant concerns regarding investor confidence, business operations, and potential job losses, given Cape Town's high unemployment rate of 21.3% in 2018.
• To build economic resilience, the City of Cape Town (CCT) and Western Cape Government (WCG) formed the 'Economic Water Resilience Task Team'. This collaborative group included government departments (DEDAT and DEADP), the CCT's Enterprise & Investment and Water & Sanitation Directorates, and non-profit or agency partners such as GreenCape, Wesgro, the National Business Initiative, and the Western Cape Economic Development Partnership (EDP).
• The task team focused on three primary activities to support businesses: mobilising them to take action through awareness and information sharing; providing guidance on strategic investments, leak detection, and water supply systems; and creating collective action platforms such as workshops and feedback mechanisms to government.
• The collaborative response is credited with avoiding a macroeconomic jobs crisis. Despite the drought, both Cape Town and the Western Cape saw a decrease in their 2017/18 annual unemployment rates, with the provincial economy creating the most jobs within South Africa.
• The 'Day Zero' narrative had mixed results: while it successfully drove rapid behavior change and an understanding of the need for resilience, it also negatively impacted investor sentiment, the tourism industry, and trust in government because it contradicted previous messaging that the situation was under control.

APA

GreenCape (2019). Building economic resilience to water scarcity: Cape Town’s response to a severe drought. https://greencape.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/20190409-GreenCape-Resilience-Reports-WaterA-FA-Interactive-3.pdf

Chicago

GreenCape. Building economic resilience to water scarcity: Cape Town’s response to a severe drought. 2019. https://greencape.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/20190409-GreenCape-Resilience-Reports-WaterA-FA-Interactive-3.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=GreenCape |title=Building economic resilience to water scarcity: Cape Town’s response to a severe drought |date=2019 |url=https://greencape.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/20190409-GreenCape-Resilience-Reports-WaterA-FA-Interactive-3.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{greencape2019building, author = {{GreenCape}}, title = {{Building economic resilience to water scarcity: Cape Town’s response to a severe drought}}, institution = {GreenCape}, year = {2019}, url = {https://greencape.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/20190409-GreenCape-Resilience-Reports-WaterA-FA-Interactive-3.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }