Submission for the V-LED Africa Regional Workshop "Localising Climate Finance and Action, April 2018, South Africa

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1 Submission for the V-LED Africa Regional Workshop "Localising Climate Finance and Action, April 2018, South Africa Think Piece: Intersecting Policies and Institutions for Localising Climate Finance and Action in the Lake Victoria Basin-Tanzania Abstract The alignment of the SDGs, The Paris Climate Agreement and CoP 23 provides grounds for tracking commitments towards the best action scenarios towards mainstreaming responses to climate change within nations. Policy mixes and strategies emerging from NDCs are expected to guide responses at national and local levels. In nations where public reforms include decentralization, the commitments promise a right-fit of evidence-based accountability for trickling finances and actions. The paper presents results from tracking pathways on climate resilience building across 40 local government authorities in the Lake Victoria Basin in Tanzania against the Country s NDC. Results indicate that while the NDC remains a complex technical narrative even amongst livelihood-related sectors such as water and agriculture; there is steep increase in demand for resilience building at local level. While governance structures are being established in compliance with international frameworks, institutional alignments at lower government levels have not evolved to show progress on the ecosystem for accountability in triggering local action. The increasing vulnerability threatening livelihoods at community level is emerging to be the trigger for innovative public-private dialogues demanding government interventions. While the central government is considered an absent partner, multilateral projects, research institutions and NGOs are initiating context-based interventions showcasing appropriate responses. Despite the good intention within the NDC in expediting climate accountability through existing governance structures, local institutional practices have continued to be insular and hugely decoupled from policy guidelines, an evident failure in intersection for delivering on local climate action. Emerging lessons suggest that strategies for accelerating competence building on climate accountability at local levels should be the priority, positioned within the decentralization frameworks to stimulate the evolution towards meaningful implementation of NDC pledges through effective intersection of policies and institutions. Key words: Climate, Competence, Institutions, Intersection, Policies, and Resilience Author: Donald Kasongi Nile Basin Discourse Maendeleo House Plot 374 Block A Pasiansi P.O Box 1923 Mwanza-Tanzania Tel donaldkasongi@yahoo.co.uk The analysis, results, and recommendations are those of the author only and do not represent the position of the workshop organisers.

2 Acronyms and Abbreviations COP CDKN INDC GEF LDC LGA NAP NAPA ODA REDD SDG UNDP URT Conference of Parties Climate and Development Knowledge Network Independently Nationally Determined Contributions Global Environmental Facility Least Developed Countries Local Government Authority National Adaptation Plan National Adaptation Program of Action Official Development Assistance Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Sustainable Development Goal United Nations Development Programme United Republic of Tanzania 2

3 1.0 Introduction Globally, communities and countries are already under severe pressure to cope with the changing climate and its varying impacts. Resilience has emerged to be the overarching approach response, generally agreed to be the ability of people to mitigate, withstand, and bounce back from shocks and stresses prepare to absorb, adapt and transform for continued survival. Across public and private sectors, communities and institutions need better climate information and services for resilience building. Extreme climate events related to global warming will happen somewhat randomly and could have a huge cost for the most vulnerable countries (Bruegel, 2015). Climate-resilient economies will require a large-scale shift of investment from high to low-carbon sectors. The alignment of the SDGs, The Paris Climate Agreement and COP 23 provides grounds for tracking commitments towards the best action scenarios towards mainstreaming responses to climate change within nations. Both SDGs and NDCs are high on the global as well as the national policy discourses. They are conceived within the prevailing national context and vision. Their implementation is further likely to evolve in a manner that strengthens synergies between the two global agendas. Developing robust climate adaptation measures is certainly complex. The optimal response to climate change is a mix of deep greenhouse-gas emissions cuts, investment to reduce the adverse impacts of climate change and endurance of some climate-related events against which protection would be too expensive. The two dominant strands for driving responses within governance layers in countries have been technical support and funding. Besides capacity development needs that are gradually being identified through and across sectors, elusion has emerged regarding sources and accounting methodologies for climate -related finance. While popularity of decentralization in national governance systems is far too evident, the type and span of decentralisation vary from country to country. The power actually exercised by subnational authorities depends on a number of factors including the range of public services they finance, revenues alignment to responsibilities, volumes of budget allocations to these services and determining the rates of taxes and charges. Experiences around the world show that it is possible to choose or develop pro-poor financial instruments. A range of instruments may be deployed in combination or sequentially based on their effectiveness in reaching and targeting poor community groups. The broader question inspiring this paper is whether there are opportunities for harnessing the intersection between climate change policies and institutions to deliver meaningful local climate actions in these times of heated rhetoric about what various policy reforms are required to trigger inclusive responses to complex issues like climate change. 2.0 Why decentralization and Climate Finance, Why now? The 2015 Paris Agreement has recognized that adaptation is a global challenge and has accepted the local, subnational, national and regional dimensions of climate change (ODI, 2018). It recognizes the importance to undertake adaption at the various levels through the NAPS and INDCs. Devising policies and identifying options must take place in the context of evolving physical, socioeconomic and political conditions 3

4 whereby uncertainties are inherent and systemic adjustments are constantly required. The successful integration of NDCs into national development planning is important for overall national policy coherence and resource allocation. Climate compatible development depends on climate change actions being part of the mainstream development process, rather than being an isolated concern of climate change ministries (CDKN, 2017). NDCs are expected to follow SMART design principles-having broad national support, clear political backing, clear institutional leadership, national coordination, institutions responding to local development needs, spending being part of national budget planning, monitored and reported (UNDP, 2011). The implementation of NDCs implementation began largely relying on significant additional international financial support, as already highlighted in the conditional elements of the NDCs. Despite the global commitment to investment in climate change mitigation and adaptation, through Green Climate Fund, REDD, Global Environment Facility (GEF) and other integrated schemes integrated in ODA, evidence on targeted spending disclosure remains limited. There is critical need for exploring and articulating factors that can help to increase policy coherence at the national level to guide implementation at subnational and local level. 3.0 Why The Intersection Between Policies And Institutions Institutions are generally the systems that structure human interaction to define the formal rules and their enforcement in the society for every day life.. Public sector institutions work within defined constitutions and laws, rules and regulations, which together are meant to ensure good enough governance. Making policy has traditionally seen as main function of governance structures. The robustness of policy making is integral to the strength of government as a whole, and that of the country at large. The phenomenon of intersection between policies and institution lies in the complementarity of the two in driving forward-looking scenarios compliant with the desired improvements. In the context of national climate change interventions, the relationship between the family of policies including NAPS and INDCs on one hand and the layers of institutions characterizes the intersection. Furthermore, Modeling disclosure on climate-related financing has converged on the following four core mutually dependent elements: Governance, Strategy, Risk management and metrics and targets signifying the complementary roles between policies and institutions as outlined in figure 1 below: 4

5 Figure 1: core elements for disclosure on climate related financing Governance Strategy Risk management Metrics and targets Governance -The organization s governance around climate-related risks and opportunities Strategy -The actual and potential impacts of climate-related risks and opportunities on the organization s businesses, strategy, and financial planning Risk Management-The processes used by the organization to identify, assess, and manage climate-related risks Metrics and Targets- The metrics and targets used to assess and manage relevant climate-related risks and opportunities 4. 0 Learning on Subnational Climate Change Accountability in the Lake Victoria Basin-Tanzania The Government of Tanzania has formulated a number of policies, strategies, and programs guided by its Tanzania Development Vision 2025, which sets long-term development goals to turn Tanzania into a middle-income country by 2025 and make it competitive in the globalized world economy. The vision articulates five attributes that Tanzania should possess by 2025: (1) high-quality livelihoods; (2) peace, stability, and unity; (3) good governance; (4) a well-educated and learning society; and (5) a competitive economy capable of producing sustainable growth and shared benefits (IFPRI-2013). Governance frameworks are the foundation to support coordination and learning.the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) was the forerunner blue print acknowledging the impacts of climate change pointing to the need for comprehensive 5

6 responses. The responses were subsequently elaborated in the country s INDC. These policy documents recognize agriculture as the mainstay of the country s economy and acknowledge that sustainable development will require short- and long-term strategic actions to address the potential impacts of climate change on agriculture and food security. According to the country s INDCs, the capacity to undertake strong adaptation and mitigation actions beyond national efforts depend on support for implementation. In addition, enhancing capacity in early- warning systems across sectors, improved research and systematic observations, improved climate change institutional capacity and coordination as well as awareness will be critical in addressing climate change ((URT, 2016) Lake Victoria is a shared ecosystem supporting the livelihoods of over 120 million people in East Africa and a population hotspot. It is an example of areas geographically linked and relies on shared natural resources, particularly water, the flows of which often span national and international borders and represent interacting risks and drivers of vulnerability. The ecosystem in Tanzania is characterized by subnational authorities (districts) in which local livelihoods are deeply linked to natural resource-based economy, an appropriate context-based candidate for tracking the responses to climate change and its impacts at local level. Despite geographical variation, similar and overlapping demands for adaptation to climate change have been acknowledged across subnational administrative units. A Participatory Readiness Scoping Study conducted by Governance Links in collaboration with 30 administrative districts in the Lake Victoria Region of Tanzania during 2016/17 sought to undertake a reality check on local governance preparedness in addressing climate change and aggregating policy informed evidence from institutional actions. The study was based on a policy and practice review with technical teams, civil society, private sector actors and community members in the Lake Victoria ecosystem. Key issues examined in the study were institutional arrangements, information sharing, Capacity building, Planning Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation. The participatory enquiries were complemented by an extensive review of the country s INDC alongside the Tanzania Development Vision (2025), Tanzania Five Year Development Plan (2016/ /21), and National Climate Change Strategy (2012). A problem-focused Political Economy Analysis guided the analysis for understanding the features of why and how local government authorities were climate change-ready. The problem: Failure of local government authorities to adapt vertical mainstreaming of climate change mitigation and adaptation as indicated by national level policy commitments. Key questions in the study were: 1. How can the climate change readiness of Local Government Authorities in the Lake Victoria ecosystem be characterized 2. What are the institutional barriers to vertical mainstreaming of climate change through decentralization reforms in the Lake Victoria ecosystem? 3. What are the promising solutions and institutional support strategies for enabling Local Government Authorities to embed climate change mitigation and adaption towards evidence-based resilience? The cross- linked results from the study were averaged to rank the parameters per district, summarized as follows: 6

7 Awareness on the intersection between SDG and climate change (adaptation, mitigation and loss and damage) Half (50%) of the 30 LGAs demonstrated high levels awareness on SDGs, climate change and intersection between the two. About a third (33%) were able to demonstrate moderate awareness and 17% indicated low awareness (figure 2) Figure 2: General awareness on Climate change and SDG 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Technical competence Financial accountability Policy leverage Sector specific knowledge on Climate change Regarding the availability of sector specific knowledge on Climate change through the sectors of Water, Agriculture, Livestock and Environment varied greatly, with only 12% demonstrating ability to articulate the sector-climate change nexus at a high level, 33% considered themselves to have moderate knowledge and 27% rating themselves at low level (figure 3) Figure 3: Sector specific knowledge on climate change 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Technical competence Financial accountability Policy leverage 7

8 Existence of Plans for vertical mainstreaming of Climate change Despite the awareness on climate change across all 30 LGAs, none of them had a formal plan for vertical mainstreaming of climate change, only 17% were able to show sector-based information intended for developing plans and 83% were not able to show any formal arrangements (figure 4) Figure 4: Plans for vertical mainstreaming on climate change 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Technical competence Financial accountability Policy leverage Horizontal learning across subnational and local governance structures While the demand for climate smart knowledge in communities, learning across subnational and local governance structures was rare and not directly focusing on exploring solutions. Only 20% of local authorities rated their learning exchange to be high 20% moderate and 40% considered horizontal learning to be low (figure 5) Figure 5: Plans for horizontal learning across subnational and local governance structure 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Technical competence Financial accountability Policy leverage 8

9 Evidence on vertical mainstreaming of Climate change Following the non-existence of formal plans for vertical mainstreaming of climate change, none of the LGAs could show evidence for moving from conceptual to practice, only 1/5 or 20% had sector-based evidence and 80% had nothing to show (figure 6). Figure 6: Evidence on vertical mainstreaming of climate change 50% 45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Technical competence Financial accountability Policy leverage Self-assessment of the priority challenges in implementing climate smart interventions Regarding the perspectives of why national institutions considered to be factors for credibility deficits in subnational levels, 50% referred to technical competence, 20% linked to financial accountability indicators while 30% referred to policy leverage limitations (figure 7) 9

10 Figure 7: Self-assessment of the priority challenges in implementing climate smart interventions 50% 45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Technical competence Financial accountability Policy leverage 5.0 Emerging challenges and missed opportunities The results from our study point to the following prevailing challenges: There is an inherent assumption that subnational institutions lack the required technical competence to interpret policies into local climate action even with the necessary financial resources leading to competence stigma in local government authorities. Policy confusion evidenced by failure to define the reciprocal accountability between central ministries and subnational institutions in driving NDC-based actions Unclear incentive systems for stimulating practical innovations has been diminishing opportunities for knowledge brokering within and across local actors Despite the good intention of decentralization, there is shrinking flexibility for adaptive policies and financing Lack of frameworks and space for horizontal learning, monitoring and reporting across subnational institution and collaborations with non-public actors is highly prevalent Accountability systems not enabled to track the mandates of subnational level to implement measures provided in the INDC There is massive failure of generic climate policy alignment to the objectives of resilience building at local level There is generally weak flow of climate information to managing the risks and uncertainties of a changing climate. 10

11 6.0 Conclusions Adaptation to climate change is a process, often involving a series of transitions of responses. Proposals for strategic alignment of interventions have consistently suggested to link enhanced coordination between national-level policy instruments and local strategies to address climate change, biodiversity loss, and disaster risk reduction and land degradation. Climate-related financial mobilization, expenditure and reporting are still evolving. The balance between technical competence and institutional commitment is necessary readiness to actively broker the required synergy between policies and institutions is critical in the delivery of local climate action. 7.0 Policy Implications and Scope for Subsequent Interventions There are significant opportunities to purposively explore the ways in which policies and institutional actors relate to and influence the course of national and sub-national responses to climate change. Further work will be needed to assist the providers of development co-operation and their partners to capture opportunities for coherence between climate and development finance at the domestic level as plans are developed to implement the SDGs and the Paris Agreement. Thinking pieces on policy implications from this paper are- what if we: Can think of promoting models for policy-institutional alignment that defines accountability across a seamless central - subnational institutional ecosystem Initiate a pragmatic approach allowing flexible integration of local climate change mitigation and adaptation into existing development programming? We dive deep into scenarios for establishing learning pools for facilitating both horizontal and vertical learning for subnational and central government regulators? Enable a policy mix that enables institutions driving context based local climate actions with innovative financing models including blended finance? Promote cross-sector partnerships with the spectrum of actors while recognizing the roles and capacity of indigenous knowledge and resilience building through nature-based solutions Innovatively de-technicalise the measures at local to resent with the local contexts National institutions (being policy custodians) facilitate the unlocking the drivers of engagement at subnational levels Adopt a climate-justice approach to make the local response narratives sufficiently inclusive 11

12 8.0 References 1. Bruegel (2015). Can A Global Climate - Risk Pool Help The Most Vulnerable Countries?-Bruegel Policy Brief ) Issue 2015/04 December ODI (2018). Moving Towards A Growing Global Discourse On Trans Boundary Adaption-ODI Briefing Note March CDKN (2017). Climate & development knowledge network , Climate and Development Knowledge Network -Integrating international climate change commitments into national actions 4. UNDP (2011). Catalyzing climate finance: A guidebook on policy and financing options to support green, low-emission and climate-resilient development 5. IFPRI (2013). East African Agriculture and Climate change comprehensive analysis UNFCCC (2016). Report of the Conference of the Parties on its twenty-first session, held in Paris from 30 November to 11 December URT (2016). Intended Nationally Determined Contributions of the United Republic f Tanzania 12