LoCAL-Tanzania joined the Government of Tanzania and its partners from the civil society and other governmental institutions to implement a 5 year ‘Decentralised Climate Finance programme’. The aim is to bring climate adaptation funding to local communities, making sure they play a part in deciding how these resources are spent.
This will be accomplished by linking financial capital from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) with local governments in communities, starting in 15 test-districts in mainland Tanzania and 3 districts in Zanzibar.
Context
Tanzania’s economic growth depends heavily on its environmental and natural resources with more than 80 per cent of the population remaining dependent on them for income generation. Despite their importance, critical challenges remain, threatening the sustainability of the environment and natural resources. Some of these challenges include the unsustainable harvesting and use of natural resources, unchecked cultivation practices, degradation of and encroachment on water sources, and the environmental impacts of climate change.
All of these combined can seriously undermine the country’s sustainable development goals including poverty eradication. With increased threats and effects of climate change, the Government recognises the critical and urgent need to protect and manage the environment and its natural resources as key to Tanzania’s economic and social development.
In 2012, Tanzania launched its National Climate Change Strategy to address the challenges of climate change. The Strategy covers adaptation, mitigation and cross-cutting interventions that will enable Tanzania the benefit from the opportunities available to developing countries in their efforts to tackle climate change. The strategy outlines the importance of the establishment of instittutions and policies at national level for climate change planning including a climate change finance mechanism.
Objectives, results and activities:
The President’s Office – Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG) signed, on the 24th June 2016, a Project Implementation Agreement (PIA) with the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the United Nations’ Capital Development Fund (UNCDF). The purpose of the PIA is to guide the partnership between PO-RALG, IIED and UNCDF in the implementation of the five-year project (2015-2020) entitled Decentralised Climate Finance in Tanzania (DFC) funded by UK-Aid/DFID within its Assisting Institutions and Markets for Resilience programme (AIM4R).
The over-arching purpose of the DCF project is to establish a robust and effective mechanism to enable Local Government Authorities (LGA) in Tanzania to access climate finance on a regular and sustained basis to fund investments that build climate resilient development at LGA and community levels.
To achieve this, the project has two specific objectives:
- First, to strengthen the capacities of PO-RALG to become an accredited National Implementing Entity (NIE) of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and channel climate finance initially to 15 Local Government Authorities (LGA) within the timeframe of the DCF project, and then nation-wide.
- Second, to build the capacities of PO-RALG and LGAs to mainstream climate change and community-driven adaptation into LGA development planning and financial systems in support of climate resilient development and low carbon growth
The five-year project, running from February 2016 - 2021, will deliver 5 outputs to the achievement of these objectives:
- Effective Performance-based Climate Resilience Grant system (finance mechanism, hereafter LoCAL) established in Tanzania and operational for additional funding.
- Functional devolved district climate finance and planning mechanisms in 15 District Councils in mainland Tanzania to finance community-prioritised investments in public goods that build climate resilience.
- Investments that build climate resilience are effectively and efficiently implemented and managed by the Districts and their performance transparently assessed as part of the mechanism.
- PO-RALG develop the institutional and financial competencies to become an accredited NIE of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to scale-up devolved climate finance in support of community-driven adaptation across Tanzania.
- Evidence and learning on the effectiveness of devolved climate finance investments to improve community resilience, differentiated by gender, is generated and used to inform policy.
Way forward
- The first 2-year phase of the project will deliver functioning, monitored climate adaptation funds in Monduli, Longido, and Ngorongoro, District Councils building on previous institutional strengthening work by IIED.
- The project will also prepare PO-RALG for accreditation as an NIE of the Green Climate Fund for the benefit of Tanzania.
Contacts
Government of Tanzania:
- Ms. Lucy Ssendi
Climate change advisor, PO-RALG
lucy.ssendi@tamisemi.go.tz - Alais Morindat
Decentralized Climate Finance Project, IIED (Dodoma)
Alais.Morindat@iied.org - Sam Greene
Researcher – Drylands, IIED (London)
Sam.Greene@iied.org - Ced Hesse
Principal Researcher – Drylands, IIED (Edinburgh)
ced.hesse@iied.org
