Tanzania: Promoting Climate and Oceans
Written by Benson Daud, 08/09/2021
With a total area of 945,087 square kilometers and with an estimated population of over 53 million, Tanzania is one of the largest countries in East Africa. The average annual temperature in Tanzania has increased by 1.0ºC since 1960 and is projected to increase to 2.7ºC by the 2060s. In the last 40 years, Tanzania has experienced severe and recurring droughts with devastating impacts on agriculture, water and energy sectors. Currently more than 70% of all natural disasters in Tanzania are climate change related and are linked to recurrent droughts and floods. Tanzania published its National Climate Change Strategy in 2012, to address both adaptation and mitigation in line with the country’s vision for sustainable development.
Initiatives taken to support climate and oceans in Tanzania
In Tanzania each person was producing, on average, solid waste of about 0.5 kg to 0.8 kg per day in 2011, including waste produced at markets. The country’s trend of solid waste generation increased from 251 tons per day in 2010 to 278 tons in 2011. Such waste includes bottles, metals and plastic scrapers, garbage, papers, glasses, food/animal products, disposable carrying bags, woods, and broken electronic devices.
Tanzania ranked 3rd in African countries in terms of mobilization of people during World Cleanup Day 2020, and 10th globally. Roughly 40,000 people came together in one day collecting over 500 tons of trash from public spaces in over 16 regions in the country, and gathering data on the waste found in community areas and along the country’s coastline.
World Cleanup Day is a solid opportunity to engage and mobilize people. The simplicity of getting people to come together and clean areas that they transit through every day, with their neighbors and family, is powerful and exciting. While we frequently lose people’s attention when we talk about more complex solutions to solid waste management, people tend to enjoy spending a couple of hours feeling they are doing something powerful for their communities.
The photos above were taken during clean-up activities conducted in different areas of Tanzania (Pictures taken by Benson Daud)
Young people in Tanzania are front line on advocating and promoting conservation and sustainability of the environment toward SDGs 2030. There is some initiative on promoting Climate Action from Tanzania:
- To build the capacity of Tanzania to adapt to climate change impacts
- To enhance resilience of ecosystems to the challenges posed by climate change
- To enable accessibility and utilization of the available climate change opportunities
- To enhance participation in climate change mitigation activities that lead to sustainable development
- To enhance public awareness on climate change
- To strengthen information management on climate change
- To enhance institutional arrangements to adequately address climate change
- To enhance mobilization of resources (particularly finance) to address climate change
Participant’s Actions for promoting Climate Action in Tanzania. Volunteers are always organizing different activities to do with environmental conservation, including:
- Beach Clean up Planting trees in public areas
- Recycling of waste materials
- Cleaning public areas such as hospitals, rivers, bridges, markets etc
- Providing training on how to mitigate climate changes
- Organizing public bonanzas as a way of raising awareness of climate changes
Photos taken by Benson Daud
References:
Sustainable solid waste management Measures in Tanzania: an exploratory descriptive case study among vendors at Majengo market in Dodoma City | BMC Public Health | Full Text (biomedcentral.com)