Tanzania: Funds for climate change misused
By Elias Mhegera – It has been established that not all funds that were disbursed for climate change did go directly go to address the issues that were aimed for. This information came in the work of the presentation ‘Tanzania: Disbursements of International Climate Finance, 2010 -2013”
Professor Pius Yambi delivering a lecture
The workshop was conducted at the Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF) conference room on August 4th this year. Presenting this paper was Prof. Pius Yanda from the Institute of Resource Assessment (IRA), of the University Dar es Salaam (UDSM). He said that his report is a synthesis of responses from various stakeholders in the Climate Change awareness campaign.
Discussing in details, he said that some people either did not understand what these funds were meant for, or they just created a room so that they could benefit from those funds deliberately.
The effects of climate change to the road infrastructure
“When you are talking of Climate Change Related projects it means some are not necessarily directly related to Climate Change by design but by choice, as a coincidence through intervention”. He commented.
He asked a series of questions which were used for preparation of his report. Main issues are; who supports Tanzania in Climate Change? Is it really focused to that objective? Which sectors? How significant is this? Who provides funding? Who receives the funding?
According to the study across USD 200 million dollars were funded to support Climate Change in Tanzania between 2010 and 2013. Source: OECD CRS online database. The Total disbursement by climate change strategy (USD millions) 44 percent- of this amount were used for mitigation
Animal’s death due to effects of climate change
Other sectors like the energy have been receiving funds in order of priority ‘energy, water supply, other, general environment protection, agriculture, transport and storage and the General Budget Support (Ministry of Finance).
The study shows that large proportion of international climate finance is supporting multiple development objectives, but is not limited to climate change per se, so very few projects are climate change components in reality.
Main providers of funds Japan also other 19 countries through ODA. Most of this funding goes back to the government part of administrators related to climate change. Even those resources that are disbursed to the Local Government Authorities (LGAs) are not followed upon.
Another question was to understand whether Is what reported in international bodies what is received downward to the country?
Poor yields due to the effects of climate change
There were discrepancies of what was reported by the development partners to what was reported by the receiving end. In the Ministry of Finance there were records of what was being offered to them but development partners but this was reported by the donor partners.
In these four years the Ministry had significant improvements. However the projects which are funded are roads, infrastructure in general, water and sanitation. The main sectors are energy and water
In conclusions, international financing is not being consistently reported, small proportion is reported at the international level, and this can be caused by a different interpretation on what climate change and what is climate change related.
This then makes it important for the financial to determine what is climate change or climate change related. Prof. Yambi admitted that the differences in reportage could explain many other issues which were not part of his research. Answering questions Prof. said that there is a need to reconcile the accounts between the development partners.
On the question what are the major impediments to access climate funding in Tanzania at the national level? Also what conditions and terms hinder the non-state actors to access finance? The answer was from Sesilia Jeremia (Rural Development Initiatives (RUDI) who said there were many other problem including those of clarity and lack of awareness.
Contributing to the debate was Peter Laizer who advised that there must be people who are knowledgeable on the modalities; there was a general feeling from participants that there is lack of institutional capacity building.
Also it was realized that lack of connectivity between international funding bodies and the institutions that deals with production had its significant implications. Moreover there were problems of knowing what are the conditions and terms.
This has also to do with lack of trust, lack of technical knows how and lack of commitment. Prof. Yambi said that the UDSM has introduced a master’s program in climate change with an intention to prepare personnel for the CSOs, the central government etc.
The don also said the East Africa, Horn of Africa, Central Africa and the small islands participants are: ministers and other functionaries to discuss matters as a preparation for the COP 21 in Paris. Including Africa Centre of Climate Adaptation
The key message is that shared Climate Change is a still a new phenomenon where institutions in Tanzania need to take an opportunity and venture in. improving capacities in knowing issues of climate change.
The Executive Director of the Economic and Social Research Foundation Dr. Tausi Mbaga Kida said that knowledge in the area of Climate Change is very important due to the fact climate change has tremendous effect to agriculture, food security and economy in general.
She was opening this workshop to discuss the successes and challenges of the domestic climate financing in order to establish how these challenges can be addressed to.
But Sithembile Mwamakamba from the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) says her organization is proud after having been reliable partner to the ESRF in an attempt to maintain sustainable agriculture.
She revisited the history of her organization since when it was registered in Zimbabwe, but now it has shifted to South Africa. The vision is to act between the government and the civil society in finding solution on famine.
It works at a country level with individual organizations like the ESRF; it also wants to be linked with other partners through this initiative through the working partner like this institution.
The main issues are marketability, seeds, post harvest management, natural resources and environment, social protection and livelihood, and institutional strengthening. The overall idea is sustainable agriculture which identifies such issues of environmental protection seriously.
Apart from that the work of FANRPAN is to identify long-term partners and stakeholders. Also to share knowledge with international partners in the climate change regime, but also making sure that all these are supporting agriculture component for instance the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).
A solution to national planning Cop 21 importance of agriculture In adapting climate change and land users as well as climate financing, what is financed, what are the trickledown effect the REDD business etc.
This is just one of the four pilot projects later other nations will have to learn from those which have been identified as role models.
