Climate change is a global problem posing challenges to the survival of mankind and sustainable development. It poses a serious risk to poverty reduction efforts and threatens to undo decades of development efforts. The impacts of climate change are and will continue to be more pronounced in poor countries. Severe impacts such as floods, frequent and prolonged droughts, reduced water supply, a decline in crop yields, increased vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, rising sea levels leading to the displacement of people and disruption of both terrestrial and marine ecosystems as well as other important natural habitats, are already experienced at various magnitudes.
While climate change has global impacts, poor countries and communities are the most vulnerable because of their high dependence on natural resources that are directly impacted by climate change. They have limited adaptive capacity and in some cases, their geographical location contributes to their vulnerability. These are the same countries struggling to deal with poverty and environmental degradation, desertification and waste management challenges.
In Tanzania, the impacts of global warming which is one of the major Climate change symptoms in terms of increased average global temperature; are already evident in almost all sectors of the economy and throughout the country. Given that Tanzania’s economic base is dependent on the climate sensitive natural resources, this makes the country highly vulnerable to the adverse impact of climate change.
Some examples of such impacts include severe and recurring droughts in recent years which have triggered economically devastating power crises and massive deaths of livestock; severe floods in areas like those that happened in Dar es salaam in December 2011, leaving thousands of people displaced; inundation of small islands and intrusion of seawater into freshwater systems in coastal areas of Tanzania mainland and Zanzibar; prolonged droughts in some parts of the country leading to food insecurity. Thus the loss of human, natural, financial, social and physical capital, due to climate change impacts, poses a challenge to the national efforts to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and places poverty reduction efforts in jeopardy.
Cognizant of the continued challenges and impacts of climate change, the Government has put in place a number of initiatives. Some of these include the enactment of the Environmental Management Act (Cap. 191) which provides for addressing climate change in a legal basis, development and implementation of the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA), formulation of MKUKUTA II and the National climate change Adaptation Action Plan. In addition, the Government is finalizing the National Climate Change Strategy. There are also various sectoral initiatives that aim at addressing the impacts of climate change and strengthening the resilience of communities.
In order to strengthen the national adaptive capacity to effectively manage the impacts of climate change, integrating climate change adaptation issues into the sectoral policies, plans and programmes is absolutely crucial. Climate change resilient policies and measures will enable the country to tackle climate change impacts in a more concerted manner. It is against this background, the Vice President’s Office has developed these Guidelines with a purpose of providing practical guidance on how Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), Local Government Authorities (LGAs) and Non State Actors should integrate climate change adaptation into sectoral policies, plans and programmes.
