Tanzania: Teams Invites Views on Plan to Cut Emissions

Dar es Salaam — The National Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) task force has invited stakeholders to give their inputs to the first National REDD draft strategy.

According to a statement released yesterday by the University of Dar es Salaam's Institute of Resource Assessment, after a series of consultations for the initial draft of the strategy, regional consultations are currently being planned in order to ensure multi-stakeholder participation from the entire region in Tanzania.

"International stakeholders are also invited to give their inputs before the task force conducts a national consultation workshop in order to approach a national consensus. A final document is expected to be ready by amid April 2011," the statement said.

The final draft will be a 'living' document, meaning that new insights and inputs may be incorporated into the document as REDD+ evolves. The statement added that the document would function as a guideline for the development of sub-national REDD+ action plans and would be mainstreamed into the sectoral development processes. Lessons learned will be shared with other countries.

The National REDD+ Strategy in Tanzania has been developed based on the national framework for REDD developed in 2009. The framework is based on the objectives of reducing emissions related to deforestation and forest degradation as well as reducing poverty of forest dependent communities.

The REDD+ Strategy is closely linked to the current national growth and development strategies such as the National Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme [MKUKUTA], the National Forest Programme and other strategies, which contribute to effective conservation and utilisation of Tanzania's natural and renewable resources and improving the livelihoods of its people.

Tanzania developed a roadmap to the development of the National REDD+ Strategy and initiated several activities towards building a strong national strategy that should be finalised by the end of December 2012.

The REDD+ Strategy draft has been produced for stakeholders' consultations and agreement making it possible to verify the hypotheses and assumptions under the proposed REDD+ interventions.