Climate change adaptation information toolkit for farming communities in Tanzania

Abstract

Climate change is happening and will continue to be the real challenge for mankind survival and sustainable development. The impacts associated with climate change are already experienced in many systems and sectors essential for human livelihood in the most vulnerable communities. On the other hand, the impacts of climate change pose a direct threat to people‘s survival and different ecosystems, particularly in developing countries. It is expected that the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events will increase causing severe socio-economic consequences particularly to the least developing countries due to low adaptive capacity. In Tanzania, we have witnessed incidences of severe and recurrent droughts hitting many parts of our country leading to food insecurity, massive deaths of livestock, dwindling of water resources and destruction of human settlements and infrastructure due to floods. All of these had consequences to communities retarding their efforts to alleviate poverty. Farming communities are among the vulnerable groups that have been suffering seriously as a result of climate change due to the fact that their activities are climate sensitive. In this regard, adaptation to the impacts of climate change is absolutely important in order to enable the farming communities to cope with the changing climate. Appropriate adaptation measures are important in strengthening the resilience of these communities in their local setting. For this to be effective, it is therefore imperative that communities are assisted with information that will enable them to understand climate change, its associated impacts and measures which can be employed in addressing the impacts of climate change through participatory climate change adaptation planning approach. Cognizant of the fact that information on climate change is of paramount importance in assisting farmers to plan for adaptation actions, the Vice President’s Office in consultation with stakeholders prepared this climate change adaptation information toolkit for farming communities in Tanzania. The toolkit is the first resource to the farming communities for the purpose of learning about what climate change is, what are the expected impacts to farming communities, and more importantly, it provides some preliminary ideas on options for adaptation that farming communities can apply to start dealing with the threats of climate change. It is a starting point for developing targeted information and resource materials to farming communities. Generally,this toolkit provides basic understanding on climate change, how it affects farming communities and equips them with ideas or tools to address climate change impacts. It is designed in the form of a resource book that will be made available directly to local farming communities,Extension Officers as well as other experts. It is my sincere hope that you will find this Toolkit useful to guide adaptation awareness, planning, management and implementation of climate change adaptation measures for the farming communities. I urge you to use this Toolkit in undertaking planning, management and implementation of climate change adaptation actions, as it will contribute towards improving people’s livelihood and sustainable development in the country.