Enhancing Climate Change Resilience of Coastal Communities of Zanzibar

In Zanzibar, one of the two countries that form the United Republic of Tanzania (URT), climate variability has caused prolonged dry periods and unpredictable rainfall pattern making crop cultivation unproductive. Freshwater resources are also in limited supply mainly dependent on seasonal rains that store water in inefficient groundwater aquifers consisting of freshwater lenses floating on the underlying seawater. Furthermore, increasing temperatures have occasionally caused seal level rise leading to saltwater intrusion in low-lying farm fields, notably rice farms.

The project will progress activities geared towards enabling climate resilient livelihoods in climate impacted areas of Zanzibar. Thus, the project’s main objective is to build the capacity of smallholder farmers in tackling climate change impacts through practical and innovative solutions; that have concrete and tangible outputs.

Specifically, the project envisages achieving the following:

• Constructing water harvesting infrastructures for supplying water throughout the year in selected sites
• Promoting soil and water conservation techniques for improved water protection and crop productivity
• Developing integrated climate resilient livelihoods diversification systems in selected sites
• Institutional capacity building of local government authorities and communities in planning , implementation of climate change adaption actions and dissemination of project results and lessons learnt.

Project Documents