Dodoma — THE
government has been advised to put in place a climate change policy to
strategically address the climate change problem.
The advice was
given by stakeholders of climate change statistics during a one-day
validation workshop for the...
National Climate Change Statistics Report
2019.
In their
recommendations they said since climate change had become a national
development challenge it was high time for the country to develop a
national climate change policy to guide programmes, strategies and
actions towards addressing the effects of climate change.
They said the
policy could also attract more stakeholders and enhance collaboration
with funding institutions to facilitate the implementation of climate
change mitigation and adaptation measures hindered by lack of funds.
Among the
stakeholders attending the workshop were from Vice President's Office,
National Carbon Monitoring Centre, Sokoine University of Agriculture,
University of Dar es salaam, the Prime Minister's Office, the Ministry
of Agriculture, the Ministry of Finance and Planning, the National
Environmental Management Council (NEMC), the Land Use Planning
Commission, the Ministry of Lands and Human Settlements, the Tanzania
Forest Research Institute (Tafori) and the Ministry of Energy and the
Ministry of Minerals.
The stakeholders
also stressed the importance of establishing and strengthening a
mechanism that would ensure strong administrative data systems which
guaranteed accurate and timely availability of climate change data.
They also proposed
to the government through the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and
the Vice President's Office to explore the possibility of establishing a
climate change data hub to address data gaps and inconsistencies.
During the
workshop, participants reviewed a draft report by assessing the quality
of data used, sealing the gaps and deliberated on challenges affecting
the production of similar reports in a national statistical system.
When opening the
workshop, Statistician General, Dr Albina Chuwa, told stakeholders that
the report among other things would be used to monitor and evaluate the
implementation of various multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs)
which Tanzania was a signatory.
Additionally, she
said the report would help create public awareness on climate change and
its effects on social and economic spheres.
The statistician
general explained that the report like many other statistical reports
produced by NBS was a result of cooperation and collaboration among both
local and stakeholders which demonstrated the importance of partnership
in statistics.
"This report is a
result of collaboration from various stakeholders. It was not an easy
task, but we have made it. Many thanks to UNEP, GPSDD and GIZ for
facilitating this workshop," said Dr Chuwa.
She noted that as
the report's main source of data was administrative data, it was a step
further in the production of official statistics using nontraditional
data sources.
Dr Chuwa
acknowledged challenges facing the use of administrative data in the
production of official statistics like that of climate change as data
was scattered in various sources.
"With data
scattered all over, it is difficult for users to timely access them and
above all it makes it difficult to make a long-term analysis of the
environmental situation of the country," she said.
The workshop was
facilitated by German International Development Agency (GIZ), Global
Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD) and United Nations
Environmental Programme (UNEP).
Speaking during the
opening of the workshop, UNEP Representative Diana Ngina from Nairobi
said UNEP was very proud of NBS because when one looked at developing
countries, NBS was in forefront in terms of the production of climate
change statistics to seal the existing data gaps.
"Let this report be
the starting point, let it be the one that other countries can look at
and try to achieve what Tanzania has already achieved," she said as
congratulated NBS and wished it could continue with the same motivation
and produce more reports.
For her part, GPSDD
Representative Karen Bett from Nairobi said her institution was
delighted to see Tanzania had managed to produce such a quality report
using administrative data.
"Having produced
this excellent report using administrative data demonstrates how
important the administrative data is. Now let's use it to inform
policies and actions to improve the lives of our people," she insisted.
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