Supporting the Development of a GCF Proposal for Enhancing Adaptive Capacity and Climate Resilience of Vulnerable Smallholder Farming Communities and Agro-pastoral Systems in Semi-Arid Areas of Tanzania

International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Enabel (on behalf of the Ministry of Finance, Government of Tanzania)

The project objective was to develop a substantiated and detailed proposal for the Green Climate Fund (GCF), for a 5-year project for “Enhancing Adaptive Capacity and Climate Resilience of Vulnerable Farming Communities and Agro-pastoral Systems in Semi-Arid Areas of Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar – ECCRA project”. The proposed project focuses on the agro-pastoral farming systems of three semi-arid regions in mainland Tanzania and the coastal systems of Zanzibar Island.

The project’s primary goals, for which the proposal was developed, are to improve the adaptive capacity and climate resilience of households- particularly female-headed households- in vulnerable landscapes and seascapes in mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar and maximize the contributions of agricultural land use and energy sources to emissions reductions through integrated gender inclusive land use management and ecosystem restoration, (ii) information, technology and innovation; and (ii) finance and private sector collaboration .

Delivering the GCF proposal, which is estimated at 60m USD, pivoted on a detailed and multi-faceted feasibility study (see the components listed below). A detailed assessment of the regions’ socio-economic context, agriculture value chains (existing and potential), landscapes, and climate change projections in these regions starkly revealed the need to both upgrade targeted value chains, and to increase their climate resilience, and to greatly improve the climate resilience of landscapes to enhance land use outputs and to improve water security. Financial and economic modelling showed that upgrading value chains for sunflower, sorghum, livestock, seaweed, and common beans, among others, e.g. through establishing public-private partnerships for processing facilities that in turn will increase market access, will improve farmer incomes and increase local GGP, while farmers (and landscapes) will also benefit from implementing climate resilient technologies and practices that reduce their input costs and increase their resilience to droughts, floods and temperature rise.

A detailed analysis of the investment environment enabling agriculture, land use, and water resource investments at a catchment level, was integral to this project. OneWorld conducted a detailed analysis of the legal and regulatory and institutional environment, of the private and public sectors, as well as NGO investors that will co-finance – in equal ratio, the 30m USD envisaged from the GCF of the public-private partnership landscape in Tanzania. Furthermore, the project team identified the possible and then the priority pipeline of programme interventions, costed these and assessed the costs and benefits.

An overarching outcome of the feasibility study was the identification and validation of an integrated project design, predicated on the four components of: climate resilient landscape management planning; upgrading climate resilient agricultural value chains and ensuring their water and climate resilience; increasing climate infrastructure and services to ensure that farmers and buyers have regular access to critical climate information, and; strengthening institutional collaboration and coordination to support climate-resilient landscape management and the process for upgrading climate resilient value chains.

The feasibility study was underpinned by thorough and targeted stakeholder engagement and gender-sensitive participatory analysis. The agricultural value chain assessments examined the structure of the value chains, identified key value chain actors, described production, aggregation, processing, marketing, farmer organisation, and different levels of private-sector participation to identify key value chain performance and inclusiveness constraints.

The climate change adaptation and emission reduction identified the key interventions required to improve the resilience of landscapes and of agriculture value chains, and to increase energy access and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Financial and economic modelling for example highlighted the viability of installing biomass and solar mini-grid systems that in turn reduce reliance on wood fuels, thereby reducing land degradation in the project regions.