The ICLEI Africa Climate Change Adaptation team: driving community participation in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

2011/08/12

The ICLEI – Africa climate change adaptation team is currently in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, breaking new ground and pushing frontiers with a wide range of key stakeholders towards local climate action.  As part of the information gathering process for the “Five City Adaptation Network project”, the team undertook a community workshop at Tuamoyo Primary school with local community members on Monday and Tuesday, 8 and 9 August 2011. The main objectives were to:

• further build upon previous capacity building exercises pertaining to climate change and adaptation;
  
  
• understand the community’s perception of risks associated with climatic changes;
  
  
• identify which climatic variable they feel exerts the most pressure upon their livelihoods and well-being.

Among the techniques employed to obtain information from the participating community members were ICLEI's ‘Local Interactive Climate Change and Risk and Adaptation Prioritisation’ (Local RAP) tool as well as a photography workshop.

The event provided an excellent platform for open discussions and facilitated ICLEI Africa’s extensive engagement with the community. In attendance were representatives from the community, local NGOs, CBO's and local government representatives from Temeke Municipal Council, and wards. Temeke Municipal Council is one of the three municipalities of the greater Dar Es Salaam City Council.

To further build upon information obtained at the community level, the team will also carry out a similar workshop with municipal, city and ministerial government officials and technical staff. Please watch this space for a detailed trip report that will be released shortly.