The four-year drought which gripped southern and east Africa between 2015 and 2018 hit small businesses in many of the major cities. As we start to count the financial cost of this, it shows up the complex relationship between water and energy, and that a ‘just transition’ here means finding ways to support businesses against the economic fallout of climate-related shocks, writes Leonie Joubert. There’s a small car-wash business that operates in the basement parking at a local shopping centre close to where I live, about ten kilometres from the heart of Cape Town. It’s not an automated drive-through set-up. It employs about five or six men to hose down, soap, dry, and polish the steady stream of cars that move through it six days a week. But in late 2017, the ongoing drought that had gripped much of southern and east Africa for nearly four years brought this South African city to within three months of running out of water. To stretch what little water was left in the dams here, the Cape Town … Continue reading Small city-based businesses hit hard by African drought