Assessment of Tanzanian and Regional Climate Change Related Policies Addressing Climate Change

Abstract

The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) revealed that climate change is real and is already happening at an unprecedented rate. This paper assessed how climate change and adaptation is mainstreamed into all relevant areas of public policies. This paper has been developed through a systematic review and analysis of Tanzanian and regional climate change related policies and strategies in order to understand the current status of climate change policies and strategies and how they influence adaptability and resilience by small scale farmers in the country. We found that even though most of the policies have touches to environmental related matters, only few policies have clear provisions on issues pertaining to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Despite all these potentials, there are however a number of constraints to the implementation of activities stipulated in the policy and development programmes to attain sustainability. In Tanzania, climate change has emerged as one of the critical environmental challenges likely to undermine country-level efforts to achieve sustainable development. Occurrences of severe droughts which have hit most parts of the country, prevalence of crop pests and diseases, which have been reported to be increasing and posing more challenge to agriculture, are evidently leading to food insecurity and water scarcity. Thus, integrating climate change risks into government policies requires more flexible, preventive and forward-looking approaches and will involve legal, institutional and policy changes. For example, climate change adaptation could be facilitated through greater use of market-based instruments such as efficient water pricing and water markets, and risk-based insurance for properties, floods and droughts.