Emergencies and Disaster Response

The right to life, safety, and support in life threatening emergencies is a challenge. Tanzania is vulnerable to recurring natural disasters, climate change, declining environmental sustainability and food insecurity. These challenges require well-organized, multi-sector emergency early warning and preparation.

The policies, strategies, plans and structures to support disaster management in the country are substantially in place. However, deep analysis reveals pervasive inadequacies in prevention and disaster mitigations strategies, inadequate preparedness measures, poor quality and timely emergency responsive capacity, and few sustainable recovery options. There is little evidence of consideration of the anticipated impact of global climate change on emergency and disaster response.

Emergency and Disaster (E&D) response in Tanzania is coordinated centrally to ensure priority attention from the highest level of the executive. Line ministries are required to coordinate their E&D response through the E&D directorate in the PMO/Chief Ministers Office. This is in-line with international best practice. However, key line ministries lack the capacity to prioritise E&D planning and response in their own policies and planning: the effect is that key services in emergency (health and nutrition, education, WASH etc) are not forthcoming when emergency and disaster strikes. Rapid response is further held back by the limited availability of immediately deployable, dedicated E&D funds. LGAs and communities lack awareness of E&D response services, whilst their communication needs during emergencies or the onset of a natural disaster such as early warning and early action bulletins is often unavailable. Within MDA's, access to the technology and the skills required to deliver and maintain communication needs in emergencies is lacking. The GoT conducts integrated food security and nutrition assessments at least twice yearly, though it lacks the capacity to conduct comprehensive assessments.