Gender Mainstreaming
Integrating Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights into Climate Change policies and Strategies in Tanzania (INSECT)
Climate Change can have serious impacts on Health in Tanzania. Specifically pregnant women can experience high risks and health challenges under climate-induced stress (drought, malnutrition, heat waves etc.). This project will strengthen the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for women in Tanzania, to empower them to participate in healthy and self-determined adaptation activities. The project's objective is to strengthen the capacity of the Ministry of Health to co-develop and implement policy and actions that address Health challenges arising from climate impacts. Particularily by supporting the review of the Health National Adaption Plan (HNAP), Climate Action Network Tanzania (CAN TZ) will contribute to establishing and sustaining mechanisms to coordinate health and climate actions. Additionally, the project will enhance implementation and planning for projects around the Nexus of Health and Climate by advocating and supporting a task force to mainstream Health and climate into the health teaching curriculum.
Co-Develop a reviewed Health National Adaption Plan
CAN Tanzania will support the Ministry of Health to review the current Health National Adaptation Plan (HNAP) to include sexual and reproductive health and right (SRHR) issues as a key climate change adaptation intervention area. CAN Tanzania will engage serval key stakeholders (CSOs, experts, MDAs etc.) in the draft and review process. CAN Tanzania will create a form to discuss existing SRHR gaps in the current HNAP and lead the process to include SRHR in the development of new HNAP which is ending in 2023, and take active participation in the development of the new HNAP.
Mainstream the health and climate Nexus into the health teaching curriculum
CAN Tanzania will facilitate initial consultations with the Ministry of Health (MoH), the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology (MEST), and other important parties as a basis for creating a curriculum for health and climate education. This will involve forming a technical taskforce to facilitate early discussions and planning for the development of a formal teaching curriculum about climate change and SRHR in schools, local communities, and among healthcare professionals. This will create the basic foundation and buy-in from the MEST, MoH, and stakeholders as a required preparation for the subsequent phase of developing the curriculum for climate education in the future. Once developed and adopted by the government, it will be used by all players in the climate and health education space in the country.
Participatory NDCs for a climate-just response in a COVID-19 world
The submission of revised national climate plans (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement is an important milestone in 2020 in order to further close the large gap between the climate targets and the previous requirements of the governments. Due to COVID-19 situation, conditions for an active CSO engagement are very difficult due to the unlimited attention to COVID-19 and the partial Little attention to climate policy, government restrictions on travels and gatherings, etc.. Awareness of cumulative effects and various solutions for both climate change and COVID-19 among decision-makers in project countries is very low due to the strong COVID emergency approach. Tanzania like many project countries treat climate measures during the COVID19 recovery phase as secondary and see these two as completely decoupled. The project addresses this situation with a focus on the voice and the contributions of civil society organizations in the project countries, especially in Bangladesh, Tanzania and Uganda, for participatory and gender-equitable improved NDCs in the context of the COVID-19 recovery are taken into account when creating the NDC.
Tanzania submitted its first Intended Nationally Determined Contribution to the UNFCCC by 2015. Since 2015, the URT has been revising and updating the NDC and implementation plan to ensure they are ambitious and realistic commitments. The process has been slow that expected due to limited available resources and the arising challenges like COVID-19 which have been changing the wave of focus of the government. Currently the review process of the Tanzania NDC is complete, and the NDC has been submitted to the ministerial cabinet for approval to be submitted to the UNFCCC and effective commencement of the implementation.
Through this project, the second review of the draft NDC was conducted to address the key issues of gender, WASH and blue economy which were missing. This also provided an opportunity for enhancement of CSOs in the technical session of revising the NDC and implementation plan that ensured practical ambitions on both adaptation and mitigation, expected to strengthen monitoring, reporting, engagement, ownership and build country resilience to the impacts of climate change and equally contribute to the global effort of reducing GHGs emission.