BUILDING CLIMATE RESILIENCE IN TANZANIA: INSTITUTIONAL REFORM AND CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT

The document argues that Tanzania's climate resilience is hindered by a lack of national policy, poor integration of climate issues into sectoral plans, and a significant disconnect between national-level data and local farming needs. It highlights the vulnerability of the agricultural sector, which supports over 80% of the population, to increasing temperatures and erratic rainfall. Key recommendations include decentralising meteorological services, increasing the number of trained climate scientists, and strengthening public-private partnerships to provide credit and insurance for adaptive technologies.

• Tanzania faces significant institutional barriers to climate resilience, including the absence of a national climate change policy, limited private sector engagement, and a lack of coordination between national and sub-national institutions.
• Climate change poses a severe threat to Tanzanian agriculture, with projections that average temperatures will exceed 30°C by 2050, potentially making large areas of land unsuitable for production.
• The Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA) provides data that is too technical for local farmers to interpret, leading many to rely on indigenous knowledge instead of official forecasts.
• There is a critical shortage of climate change scientists and inadequate monitoring infrastructure, with only 26 weather monitoring stations currently in place.
• Agricultural extension services are constrained by limited human resources and budgets, a legacy of structural adjustment programmes in the 1980s that led to the retrenchment of extension officers.
• The private sector is essential for scaling up climate resilience by providing credit facilities and insurance, which enable farmers to invest in irrigation and drought-resistant crop varieties.
• Participatory approaches to weather forecasting are more effective than broadcast information; research in the Morogoro region showed farmers who worked directly with meteorologists achieved higher yields.

APA

OJOYI, M. M. (2017). BUILDING CLIMATE RESILIENCE IN TANZANIA: INSTITUTIONAL REFORM AND CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT. South African Institute of International Affairs. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Policy-Insights-52.pdf

Chicago

OJOYI, MERCY MWANIKAH. BUILDING CLIMATE RESILIENCE IN TANZANIA: INSTITUTIONAL REFORM AND CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT. South African Institute of International Affairs, 2017. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Policy-Insights-52.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=OJOYI |first1=MERCY MWANIKAH |title=BUILDING CLIMATE RESILIENCE IN TANZANIA: INSTITUTIONAL REFORM AND CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT |publisher=South African Institute of International Affairs |date=July 2017 |url=https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Policy-Insights-52.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{ojoyi2017building, author = {OJOYI, MERCY MWANIKAH}, title = {{BUILDING CLIMATE RESILIENCE IN TANZANIA: INSTITUTIONAL REFORM AND CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, year = {2017}, month = jul, url = {https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Policy-Insights-52.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }