The CityLinks Team has been in Tanzania all week conducting workshops for local government officials and staff on climate change and its impacts here.  In our Tuesday workshop, local government officials-mayors and city directors/managers – came together to discuss the impacts of climate change that they have seen in their communities.  With more than 150 participants, they formed groups and talked about impacts in the zones of the country: Southern Highlands, North, Coastal, West, Central and Lake Region. There were lively discussions about impacts they have experienced including:

• Change in rainfall patterns and increased impact on agriculture yields.
• Increase in storm and wind intensity.
• Increase in droughts for certain regions.
• Increase in flooding in other regions.
• Increase in coastal erosion and sea level rise, including salt water incursion into areas.
• Various impacts on Lake Victoria including evaporation and decrease in the fish population.
• Increase in temperatures.
• Increase in disease.  Some cooler, drier areas have experienced an increase in temperature with more rainfall and now have more cases of malaria and dengue fever which they have not had before.

What became clear is that the development challenges that Tanzania is already facing are exacerbated by the impacts they are experiencing now from climate change.  For example, Tanzania suffers from  deforestation mainly due to people cutting down trees for firewood for cooking. This deforestation coupled with the increase in winds, storms from climate change has magnified their problems of erosion.  Or think about solid waste management.  With limited proper management, much waste ends up in drainage ditches and with increases in rainfall, flooding has a much more devasting impact.

And this is not just in Tanzania. CityLinks and USAID has seen this in other developing and transitioning countries, from Africa to Asia. The impacts of climate change are hindering efforts of many cities and countries to achieve development goals and provide services for their citizens. 

For more information on our partnership with Dar es Salaam, read a recent blog post, or visit our CityLinks project page. For more information on CityLinks, visit our website.