Tanzania creates a National Framework for Climate Services

24 August 2018

The United Republic of Tanzania has launched a National Framework for Climate Services, with the aim of improving the ability and usability of weather and climate services to increase resilience to climate change and extreme weather.

The framework will be spearheaded by the Tanzania Meteorological Agency and will unite different government sectors and actors in society to increase efficiency and coordination, and to facilitate cross-cutting actions.

Tanzania joins a growing number of countries who have established national climate services frameworks, inspired by the World Meteorological Organisation’s Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS).

The GFCS uses weather forecasting and early warning services of rapid hazards such as floods to promote longer term climate predictions.

Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General, WMO commented:

“The need to tackle efficiently the increasing impacts of climate variability and change in socio economic sectors comes with the imperative of increasing adaptation measures to meet unprecedented demands for clean water, food production, disaster reduction, energy and effective management of health burdens”

“This imperative will be hard to address under the current changing climate if countries do not adopt appropriate measures, new approaches and tools that would enable more effective climate risk management, and the production of scientifically sound information and services to inform planning, policy and decision making at all levels”

Tanzania’s framework was officially launched by Anthony Mavunde, Tanzania’s Deputy Minister for Labour, Youths and Employment this week.

The framework has been developed as part of the GFCS Adaptation Programme in Africa, which was implemented in Tanzania and Malawi from 2015 -2017. A second phase of the programme, funded by Norway, has been approved for three more years.

Petteri Taalas added:

“Effective development and application of climate services allows disaster risk managers to prepare more effectively for droughts and floods; empowers farmers to fine-tune their planting based on seasonal climate forecasts; assist public health services to target vaccine and other prevention campaigns to limit climate related disease outbreaks; and help improve the management of water resources”

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Image credit: WMO