Training on Environment, Climate Change and Gender Mainstreaming in the context of Land Rights and Pastoralism

The Pastoral Programme is a program being jointly implemented and managed  by TNRF and CARE, and is a four year project(2012-2015) funded by Irish Aid. The program is implemented through partnership with registered Tanzanian civil society organizations (CSOs) that work to improve the capacity of communities to overcome poverty reduce vulnerability and strengthen the rights of men and women for sustainable livelihoods. Currently more than 18 projects are supported by the programme at national, regional and district levels. TNRF's involvement in the program is mainly to provide policy, communications and technical support to the program.

Due diligence assessment results conducted before the programme start up to implementing CSOs, and baseline conducted to LGAs and local leaders to ascertain Organizational capacity, internal control mechanisms, past performance and capacity needs found that most of them have inadequate knowledge and require to improve their knowledge and skills on Environment,  Climate Change and Gender Mainstreaming in line with Pastoralism. On 30^Th September - 03^Rd October 2013, TNRF is facilitating trainings to CSOs project coordinators and Officers, District Livestock officers(Heads of Departments) and Chairpersons of District Council to build their capacity on Environment, Climate change and Gender that will acquire skills to effectively implement the funding projects and mainstream Gender and Climate changes in the community development project at local, district, regional and national levels. 

Training Objectives

• To analyze Gender issues in the context of Land rights and climate change as well as of Pastoralism
• To explore aspects for Gender and climate change programming in land rights
• To enable and equip implementing CSOs, LGAs and local leaders with knowledge and skills on Gender and Climate Change Mainstreaming in Pastoralism and Land rights;
• To familiarize participants with the context of Tanzania today in term of Climate change and Gender mainstreaming;
• To enable District Livestock Officers(Heads of Departments), local leaders and implementing CSOs, and potential CSOs to develop competency in mainstreaming Climate Change and Gender into pastoralist development programmes and apply the same in addressing pastoralists needs and rights 

Participants

The training attended by 40 participants(among them 9 are women) that include project officers and project coordinators from the 2^nd batch implementing CSOs and other potential CSOs, as well as District Livestock Officer(Head Of Departments) and chairpersons of district councils. District Livestock Officer(Heads of Department) and Chairperson of District Council came from Gairo, Mvomero, Longido, Babati, Meru and Hanang District Council. CSOs project Officers and Coordinators are from MASNET, UMWEMA Group, HUDESA, WODSTA, TPCF, LIVES, NAADUTARO, COSITA, EKWET, UNGO, SHDEPHA-KAHAMA, RIRA, Morogoro Paralegal, RUNGONET, ALAPA, ESUPAT-Bagamoyo, EWGS-Monduli.

The trainings are facilitated by team of Pastoral Experts including Climate Change Expert, Alais Morindat from International  Institute of Environment Development ( IIED); Gender Expert, Magdalena Mhina from Mount Meru University; Pastoralist Programme Training Coordinator, Zakaria Faustin from TNRF; and  Pastoralist  Programme Coordinator, Alex Soko from CARE Tanzania.

Training Coverage's

The training on Environment and climate change(30Sept-01^St Oct 2013) covered major areas:  Introduction to Climate Change, Context of Tanzania Today in terms of Climate Change(National Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan), Case study sharing from plenary  and group works on climate change, Mainstreaming Climate Change into pastoralism, and Climate change programming and Tanzania Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan. 

Gender mainstreaming (01^St -03^Rd Oct 2013)  intend to cover Introduction to Gender mainstreaming, Gender mainstreaming into Pastoralism, Share experiences from various case studies on Gender mainstreaming issues, policy frameworks and national initiatives on Gender mainstreaming, and Gender programming.

Major Issues emerged on Climate Change

• There was common consensus from all participants that Climate change is real happening - these indicated by increase of temperate in Kilimanjaro, Drought of vegetation that covered Mt Kilimanjaro slopes, Bassotu Lake over floods, increase flooding occurrences, changes in temperatures in different places of the world, increased in temperatures, etc
• There was common agreement that the pastoralist grazing should be respected, surveyed and owned jointly by pastoralist groups/association for land right security purpose in the same manner as farming/agriculture land
• It was recommended that government to review policies to combat climate changes, creation of enabling environment to support community to implement adaptation strategies that are environmental friendly.
• Longido District Resources Management Plan cited as one of the key and good best practices of climate change adaptation initiatives by the district council in collaboration with development partners
• Participants advised to push developed countries to accept and sign KYOTO Protocol on Climate change
• Participants raised their concerned on the theory of development that the government opted to take in compare with other countries: Investors and Investments! Government value investors and give them priorities. As the results investors drain most of useful local resources
• Culture of silence is named as contribution of dehumanizing the pastoralists on their rights to resources, more vulnerable to Climate Changes.
• More emphasis should be on keeping livestock that are climate change resilience's
• Mobility pointed out as key climate change resilience strategy
• Indigenous breeds livestock keeping nominated as climate change resilience's breeds that adaptive to climate changes in drylands
• Lack of Government political will and commitment is one of the challenges that constraints adaptation strategies that use traditional knowledge
• The challenges noted by participants in addressing climate changes includes communication gap between ministry and pastoralists on climate change information, government myth on pastoralist as causes of environmental degradations and acceleration of climate changes in the country; mitigation strategies on climate change are more expensive, labour intensive and time consuming; weak capacity for development countries to adopt mitigation measures on climate change
• It was recommended to establish system that enabling pastoralist to get information on climate change to inform them to make the rights adaptation strategies including the right time of making mobility.