The Day Zero Disaster Plan included prioritising and protecting the poor and most vulnerable communities where critical infrastructure and facilities and vulnerable and informal residential areas would remain connected while higher-income residential areas would be cut off . Yet it is important to recognise that pre-existing deficiencies in service delivery meant water access for the urban poor did not change as significantly during the drought, particularly those in informal settlements who collect water from standpipes . For these communities, the negative economic impact of the drought was compounded by the unintended consequences of demand management regulation emanating from the drought response. South Africa ostensibly ensures a constitutional right to water, regardless of ability to pay , 58). Since 2018, however, as a consequence of new water tariffs instituted during the drought, Cape Town residents now have had to 'prove their poverty' in order to register as indigent households and access their water right . Further, since 2007 and with increasing effect during the drought, the municipality has installed approximately 250,000 water management devices as a credit control and, during the drought, also a consumption control measure. As these have been largely installed in low-income homes, this control measure disproportionately affected poor households .
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report