Differentiated livelihoods, local institutions, and the adaptation imperative: Assessing climate change adaptation policy in Tanzania

Abstract

This paper interrogates the framings and priorities of adaptation in Tanzania’s climate policy and examines the implications for the role of local institutions and differentiated rural populations in climate change adaptation. Although Tanzania lacks a “stand alone” climate policy, Tanzania’s National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) and National Climate Change Strategy (NCCS) provide the most comprehensive statements of the central government’s framing of adaptation and its priorities with regard to adaptation. In assessing discursive framings of adaptation, we find that the dominant policy discourse constructs an anti-politics of adaptation through its framing of climate change as an urgent and generalized threat to development while failing sufficiently to address the complex governance and social equity dimensions of climate change adaptation. The technocratic prescriptions of Tanzania’s NAPA and NCSS converge with similar prescriptions found in Tanzania’s national development policies, such as the major agricultural development initiative Kilimo Kwanza. Adaptation challenges identified by communities in Mwanga District demonstrate complex local institutional and resource tenure questions that are not addressed in climate policy but which require policy attention if social equity in climate change adaptation is to be achieved.