Tanzania fairs well in climate change resilience project

TANZANIA has been commended for the way it is implementing the pilot project on combating climate change but has been challenged to ensure more involvement of the local communities.

The challenge was given by Deputy Executive Secretary of the Lake Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC) Eng Coletha Ruhamya who led a team of senior officials who visited the country recently.

For the last three years, LVBC has been executing the project dubbed Adapting to Climate Change (ACC-LVBC) that seeks to increase climate change resilience . It is implemented in five East African member states of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

According to Eng Ruhamya, Tanzania has recorded impressive steps in the pilot project but she needs to ensure that more local communities own the project for the sake of sustainability.

“We have toured the project site, and the progress is good so far. However, in my view, more locals need to be sensitized for them to take the ownership of the project, make it sustainable, and deliver expected results,” she said.

Responding to the remarks, Magu District Commissioner Rachel Kassanda said her office will make sure it effectively takes over from where the project has reached and promised that all objectives will be conclusively attained.

DC Kassanda thanked the LVBC for taking the initiative to secure funds for the project, and asked for more such partnership on climate change prone and vulnerable areas.

“My office is taking over immediately to ensure the continuation of what the project has achieved. In doing so we will make sure more youths are fully involved, contrary to the current trend whereby such projects are hosted by the elderly members in the local communities,” she said.

The ACC-LVBC Coordinator from the Vice President’s Office Eng Onesphory Kamukuru outlined major interventions by the project that included water conservation, climate smart agriculture and ecosystem based practices where four water reservoirs were constructed in the project site, among others.

He said the project was nearing completion and was set for handing over to the local authorities come June this year.

ACC-LVBC project was developed in order to increase climate change resilience in the Lake Victoria Basin through implementation of both regional and community based climate change adaptation interventions and technologies.

The three years, USD five million project was funded by the Adaptation Fund through the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), with an overall objective of reducing vulnerability to the negative effects of climate change in the LVB member countries.

In Tanzania the project was implemented in Ng’haya Village of Magu District in Mwanza region.

A section of village members who spoke to the Lake Zone Watch expressed their gratitude for the project and said they predicted a brighter future and improved livelihood previously threatened by climate change disasters.