The Vice President’s Office, in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Kigoma Regional Secretariat, the National Environmental Management Council (NEMC), and the Tanzania Forest Services (TFS), is launching the “Building Climate Resilience in Kigoma Region” project. This project is funded by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) through UNEP and aims to address the impacts of climate change in Kigoma.
The project, set to run from 2024 to 2028, will be implemented in the districts of Kasulu, Kibondo, and Kakonko in the Kigoma Region. The objective is to enhance community resilience to the effects of climate change through sustainable land management, conservation of natural resources, and climate-smart agricultural practices.
In line with this initiative, the Office of the Vice President invites qualified Tanzanians to apply for various positions within the project. These positions are available on a fixed-term basis for the project’s five-year duration.
Second Phase District Coordinators 8 REVISED-SECOND PHASE JOB ANNOUNCEMENT-KIGOMA 8 MAY,2026- EXPERTKigoma is a region with a population of ~2.3 million people that spans ~37,000 km2 in the north-western corner of Tanzania. It is currently hosting ~250,000 refugees from neighbouring countries, the majority of whom are living in the refugee camps of Nduta and Nyarugusu. These settlements — which were rapidly established in response to critical humanitarian needs — have added to the population pressures on the surrounding degraded agro-ecological landscapes .
Approximately 90% of the host community population in the areas adjacent to the refugee camps and a substantial number of refugees are engaged in small-scale agriculture. As a result, they rely heavily on the goods and services provided by the region’s ecosystems. Climate and non-climate drivers have degraded and are further degrading these ecosystems. For example, between 2011 and 2018, Kigoma lost ~5.3% of its tree cover (~108,000 ha of forest), a proportion of which is attributable to climate impacts such as increased fire incidence, rainfall intensity and flooding, as well as rising temperatures and hazards such as erosion, long term land degradation and the destruction of water resources. During community consultations host communities directly attributed some of these impacts to climate change and further highlighted climate change as a significant threat to natural resources and their livelihoods. Other development drivers of degradation include demand for fuelwood, increased by refugee presence, and agricultural expansion that is partly attributable to reduced yields from climate factors. Moreover, the enforcement of established guidelines and village bylaws intended to protect water resources and mitigate flood impacts remained a challenge. Community consultations highlighted that even for villages where Village Land Use Plans had been developed, villagelevel environmental committees did not have the capacity to enforce community guidelines and their ability to raise awareness among community members on land degradation was constrained. These development factors, together with climate change impacts such as increases in the intensity and frequency of unmanaged wildfires, flooding, erosion, and disease, are placing considerable pressure on the region’s natural resources. Projected climate change impacts will further increase the intensity of this pressure.
Historical climate trends for the country show that temperatures are rising and rainfall is becoming more erratic and intense, with Tanzania’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) highlighting the severity of climate-related disasters and the impacts associated with rainfall variability, droughts and floods. In Kigoma, despite precipitation having increased over the long-term (an average of +7.9 mm per year since 1954), rainfall has become increasingly variable since 2000. There have also been changes to the rainfall profile, including more prolonged dry spells and more intense rainfall events. Both host communities and refugee camps reported an increased susceptibility of water resources to heightened rainfall variability. For example, since 2000, flood events have occurred at a higher frequency and intensity, with associated greater negative impacts on infrastructure and livelihoods than in the past. In particular, there has been an increase in the occurrence of large magnitude flood events by 7.6% for the 1:10-year flood event and an increase by 7% for the 1:100-year flood event. Host communities reported exacerbated flood impacts in areas along the Nyangwa River as well as in some zones of the former Mtendeli camp and Nyarugusu camp, as well as marshland areas developing in Nduta. In all three camps areas the main issue is storm water, not river flooding – causing gully erosion. Additionally, for the same period there was an increase in the average number of dry months per year – a metric which correlates with drought events. Prior to 1999, the number of wet and dry months in a year were almost equal; in recent times, the dry months exceed the wet months by eight times. Mean annual temperatures in Kigoma have also increased over this period, rising by 0.18°C per decade since 2000. This increase in temperature has led to increased evaporation and evapotranspiration of surface water resources. These drying trends have threatened local livelihoods which rely on rainfall and ecosystem goods and services in the region.
The above-mentioned changes have exacerbated the existing environmental degradation and had profoundly negative impacts on agricultural outputs, incidence of pests and diseases, forest resources, surface- and groundwater availability, soil erosion and soil fertility. For example, as a result of the impacts of climate variability in the last 20 years, farmers in Kigoma region now harvest 40 to 53% less maize – a staple food critical for the region’s food security8. Projections show that maize yields are expected to decrease by a further 17% because of climate change, with other crops being similarly affected . For other crops like beans and cassava, years with abnormal rainfall patterns have also been associated with poor crop yields, and the increasing unpredictability and unreliability of rains has made planning for agricultural activities difficult. Reduced yields and harvest uncertainty drive further environmental degradation by farmers, through clearing of fertile forest land for agricultural expansion or as they are forced by necessity to engage in alternative livelihood activities, like charcoal production.
