Country Director of Heifer International Dr Henry
Njakoi (R) shakes hands with EU Ambassador to Tanzania Filiberto
Sebregondi (L).
The grant is one of the 5 grant contracts under the second phase of
the EU global Climate Change alliance in Tanzania, which were signed
during the EU Climate Diplomacy Day – celebrating EU’s work of climate
change mitigation and adaptation towards a climate resilient world and
economy.
The Global Climate Change alliance provides a platform for dialogue
and financial support to adapt to adverse effects of climate change and
works through Eco village integrated approach.
In the Igunga Eco Village; Heifer Nederland, Heifer Tanzania, Aqua
for All, the Igunga District Council, and ICIPE will work together with
local communities in nine villages to increase their resilience towards
adverse effects of climate change and will target 6,000 direct families,
6,000 indirect families which in total is 72,000 beneficiaries in the
communities.
During the grant signing ceremony recently in Dar es Salaam, Heifer
Tanzania Country Director Dr Henry Njakoi said “We will work with
communities to support natural resource management, strengthen socio
economic situations and increase the agricultural productivity in the
villages”.
He added: “Heifer will also work with the Igunga district council
to build the capacity of their technical departments. The capacity
building will enable the Igunga district council to access, plan and
implement climate change practices within their policies and programmes
and share lessons learnt and experiences with others.
The Eco village approach in phase one covered three eco village
areas, the semi-arid Eco village which was the Chololo semi-arid area in
Dodoma, Ocean -Eco village through the Replicable solutions to climate
change project in Pemba and Mountains Eco village in the Uluguru
Mountains.
Phase two will scale up the successful innovations of the eco
village approach to a tune of 8 million euros (Tanzania shillings 18
billion) in the second phase compared to the 2.2 million euros in phase
one.
Climate change is affecting the eco system by climate induced and
more frequent droughts, increased numbers of forest degradation,
deforestation, water scarcity and reduced crop yields.
According to Dr Gharib Bilal, the Vice president of Tanzania, the
world average temperature of 0.85 degrees centigrade will lead to
catastrophic consequences in Africa. The decrease in Temperature has
triggered big impacts in agriculture.
Sub-sahara Africa may see a decrease of 90 percent in Maize yields,
68 percent in beans yields and a decrease in coffee yields by 18
percent for southern Africa and 22 percent across all sub-Saharan
Africa. Africa braces losing more than 300 million US dollars in the
regional economy from agriculture. With Disease induced by extreme
flooding is likely to impact a good number of African countries by 2020
alluded Dr Bilal.
The project in Igunga aims at increasing the adaptation of climate
change strategies and increasing the yield of farmers by 40 percent
through the introduction of climate smart technologies.
Farmer field school approach will be used, where the farmers will
be trained on a wide range of proven climate adaptation technologies
including integrated pest control, tree planting and renewable energy
sources. Innovative techniques to Recharge, Retain and Re- use water
will be tested and scaled up to make efficient use of available water
sources.
Heifer will distribute and train the beneficiaries on passing on
the Gift where Chicken, Fish , Push Pull technology knowledge and seeds
will be passed on to members of the community.
Speaking during the EU Climate Diplomacy day celebrations held only
200 days before COP21 Climate change conference in Paris, Ambassador
Malika Berak – Ambassador of France to Tanzania called for all countries
in the world to preserve the climate for the global good and urged
participation of the Tanzania government, Civil Society organizations
and private sector to attend the conference.
“The COP21 Paris Conference is the beginning of Zero Carbon. Zero Poverty world,” said Ambassador Berak
Heifer’s mission is to end hunger and poverty while caring for the
Earth. For more than 70 years, Heifer International has provided
livestock and environmentally sound agricultural training to improve the
lives of those who struggle daily for reliable sources of food and
income.
Heifer is currently working in more than 30 countries, including
the United States, to help families and communities become more
self-reliant.
However, Tanzania needs approximately USD 500 million (831.5bn/-)
to help farmers overcome impacts of climate change on agricultural
productivity yet only USD 20m (33.3bn/-) has been obtained.
Speaking last year in Dar es Salaam when opening a two day National
Workshop on Climate Change and Agriculture themed: ‘Sharing Evidence
and Experience on Climate Agriculture-Smart Agriculture in Tanzania,’
Deputy Director on Climate Change (Vice President’s Office) Richard
Muyungi revealed the need of approximately USD 500 million to overcome
the effect of climate change.
Muyungi said there is need to educate farmers on Climate Change
threats and mitigation methods as well as to put up early warning
systems that will help them cope with the changing climate.
Detailing on the needed funds, he said the collected USD 20m is
from European countries but remained optimistic that the balance –
nearly 800bn/- will be realised.
“The funds that we have collected are set aside to deal with
effects of climate change on agriculture and will also help in providing
education to farmers,” he said cautioning that climate change will keep
on challenging the world at large as never before if no measures are
taken.
Muyungi said among mitigation efforts include reduction of carbon emission and increasing agricultural activities.
“The issue of climate change touches the economic and social life
of the people but we can use agricultural activities like having a
variety of crops to mitigate the effects of climate change,” he noted.
On her part, Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United
Nations (FAO) Senior Natural Resources Officer Dr Kaisa Karttunen
explained that the aim of the workshop is to share experiences and
discuss ways to combat climate change through agriculture.
“Tanzania needs to find better ways to adapt to climatic change especially through agriculture,” she urged.
“This can be done by closely working with farmers on different and better farming methods,” she added.
SOURCE:
THE GUARDIAN
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