Keywords

1 Introduction

Climate Change (CC) impacts present challenges to cities and municipalities around the globe (Kiunsi 2013). Herslund et al. (2015) and Roberts (2010) note a limited momentum among stakeholders for a broad citywide Climate Change Adaptaion (CCA) strategy to address the complexity of CC impacts due to capacity constraints. The city’s poor are currently unable to cope adequately with the existing climate variability while the rapid urban growth compounds the current situation (Pan African, START, Tanzania Meteorological Agency, and Ardhi University 2011). From a spatial planning perspective, it is the role of urban planners to coordinate, for example, local preferences/contexts and stakeholders’ initiatives with the (sectoral) policy objectives, from the local to the (inter)national level (Biesbroek et al. 2009).

CC response requires reshaping of local planning, regulatory and financial frameworks to encourage and support adaptation of households, community organisations, NGOs and the private sector, and local government responses for risk reduction (Moser and Satterthwaite 2008). Since Climate Change Mitigation (CCM) strategies may have prospects of effectiveness only after a very long period of time, it may result in less CCA, however, for spatial planning that is of limited relevance (Biesbroek et al. 2009). It is anticipated that through spatial planning, Local Government Authorities (LGAs) can increase resiliency to major climate shifts and ensure communities are equipped with built-in mechanisms to adapt and mitigate such changes (Hirokawa and Rosenbloom 2013).

Furthermore, the extent of municipal Climate Change Policy (CCP) tends to increase with the attainment of education and awareness among local residents as has been investigated in previous studies (Vasi 2006; Feiock et al. 2009; Krause 2010, 2013; Pitt 2010; Sharp et al. 2011; Kwon et al. 2014; Opp et al. 2014). Low levels of education and commitment among elected officials in many developing countries compound the challenges of CCP. There is, therefore, a pressing need to examine the extent of CC knowledge and awareness among professionals involved in planning at the local level. However, the level of knowledge on CC impacts, adaptation, and mitigation strategies among urban planners in developing countries has not been adequately investigated. This chapter draws from the experiences of spatial planners and policymakers in Tanzania, with respect to both knowledge and understanding of CC impacts, adaptation and mitigation in relation to CC knowledge, as applied to diverse plans and related spatial tools.

2 Conceptual Framework

The term governance refers to the different ways in which societies can organise themselves and make decisions to achieve Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) or Climate Change Mitigation (CCM). Resilience is understood as an attempt to return to normal with normality being the pre-disaster state (Kelman et al. 2015). Resilience can also be considered as the ability of a system to withstand a major shock and maintain or quickly return to normal function (Leichenko 2011). Building a city’s resilience requires a multi-level, cross-sectoral, as well as multi-stakeholders’ governance approach (Dodman et al. 2011). Assessing the level of the urban planners’ knowledge of CCP provides a mechanism to assess the importance of urban planning training programmes as summarised in Fig. 7.1.

Fig. 7.1
A flowchart explains how the knowledge and experience of adaptation and mitigation planning, and the resilience to risks, contribute to climate change Governance.

(Source Authors’ 2021)

Climate change responsive planning

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In the Global South, CCP is not well enshrined in their public works programmes at the neighbourhood level (Storch et al. 2011). In addition to the demand for professional, urban planning education, most developing countries are facing several other challenges including the weak capacity of LGAs, short-term planning, and physically oriented plans that do not respond effectively to change (Roberts 2010; Herslund et al. 2015). Furthermore, many plans end up not being implemented (Storch et al. 2011). A further challenge to CC responsive planning is that LGAs often lack the commitment to environmental planning and the fact that higher authorities tend to impose the requirement to engage in CCP activities in a top-down approach (Burby 1998). The extent to which municipalities engage in CCP tends to increase with the commitment levels of elected officials, planning staff and local residents (Bedsworth and Hanak 2013; Stevens and Senbel 2017; Shi et al. 2015).

3 Climate Change Planning in Tanzania

As far as adaptation and resilience to CC is concerned, Tanzania’s National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) and National Climate Change Strategy (NCCS) provide the most comprehensive statements of the central government’s framing of adaptation and its priorities with respect to adaptation as the country lacks a standalone climate change policy. However, Smucker et al. (2015) argue that CCA policy constructs an anti-politics of adaptation through its framing of CC as an urgent and generalised threat to development while failing to sufficiently address the complex governance and social equity dimensions of CCA.

Kiunsi (2013) argues that the national CC strategy has limited provision for measures to build adaptive capacity in Tanzania. Malele (2017) has forwarded a further argument identifying a weak policy framework for disaster risk management. He notes a lack of synergy between the National Disaster Management Policy (URT, 2007) and sectoral policies including the Human Settlement Development Policy (2000). There is also an agreement in the literature regarding the existence of loopholes in the current policies and regulations. For instance, with respect to ownership, use, and management of the hazardous lands and protected areas are regarded as “no one’s land” and therefore act as a setback towards Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) as well as to building a city’s resilience (Kweka 2017; Malele 2017).

Additional challenges to CCP in Tanzania are: hierarchal government structure in which adaptation and disaster risk management are centralised in the National President’s and the Prime Minister’s Offices respectively, with no staff and resources at LGAs levels (Vedeld et al. 2015; Kweka 2017); a multi-level and fragmented governance system, which limits an integrated approach to building resilience (Herslund et al. 2015; Vedeld et al. 2015; Malele 2017); weak enforcement of existing regulations, especially those related to urban planning and environment management (Malele 2017; Kweka 2017; Sakijege et al. 2012; Rugai and Kassenga 2014); and inadequate implementation of policy provisions to enhance resilience in urban areas, e.g. the provisions needed to provide infrastructure and services prior to allocating plots to developers (URT 2000; Malele 2017).

At the household level adaptation to CC related challenges has been thoroughly studied (John et al. 2014; Kiunsi 2013; Sakijege et al. 2012), but CCP and risk minimisation measures through structural adaptation strategies have hardly been achieved at all at the household level. Kiunsi (2013), Parnell (2015) and Sakijege, Lupala and Sheuya (2012) argue that these adaptation strategies are constructed with little or no attention to acceptable technical considerations and with limited capacity. The issue of lack of capacity in relation to planning and implementation of CCA measures is broadly discussed in the literature on Tanzania (Dodman et al. 2011; Rugai and Kassenga 2014; Shemdoe et al. 2015). The deficit of budget in LGAs compounds the challenges related to building resilience in favour of either CCA or CCM (Kithiia 2010; Kiunsi 2013; Malele 2017). The problem of enforcing land use zoning is compounded by other factors, including interference from leaders for political reasons, as well as malpractice including corruption (Vedeld et al. 2015; Rugai and Kassenga 2014; Kweka 2017; Shemsanga et al. 2010).

Arguments on improving adaptation measures and capacities in the literature include social changes for adaptation, primarily related to education and capacity building; scientific change in terms of detailing the implications of CC, including detailed cost estimates of temperature change, sea-level rise and changes in precipitation (Dodman et al. 2011). Carmin et al. (2011); and a call for the need to link adaptation planning and implementation to city priorities and existing initiatives, as CC frequently is perceived as being a distant threat, and therefore, regarded as less important and often in conflict with immediate priorities.

Kithiia (2010) argues that city planners and decision-makers view CC through the lens of the global policy agenda, hence there is no CC response planning and/or failure to provide for CCA planning within the overall municipal development planning. In Dar es Salaam critical risk reduction infrastructure such as stormwater drainage, sanitation systems, and solid waste management is inadequately provided for in the settlement plans (Malele 2017). At the same time, urban planning is often done with limited involvement of stakeholders at various levels (Vedeld et al. 2015). Kweka (2017) argues that the state controls land use planning in a hierarchical and non-transparent manner despite the national policies and acts calling for transparency, accountability, and participation of other key stakeholders. Since most of the CCP techniques are not well implemented in Tanzania, the literature emphasises the need for capacity building of the technical cadres (Shemdoe et al. 2015).

4 Research Methodology

This study links knowledge of CC among professional planners in Tanzania aiming to understand how this has impacted resilient cities and the practices on the ground. This is achieved through responses to the following research questions:

  • How resilient are local authorities in Tanzania, considering the degree of adoption of either CCM or CCA planning?

  • To what extent is the adoption of CCM or CCA planning related to planners’ knowledge gained through multiple sources?

  • What are the variations in both the adoption of CCM and CCA planning and the level of CCP knowledge among urban planners in Tanzania?

Two approaches are implicit in this study; the first is a questionnaire survey which was conducted in Arusha. The Arusha Master Plan was explored in this study by interviewing planners who were working for Arusha District Council (ADC), Arusha City Council (ACC) and Arumeru District Council (ArDC) during the period of the Master Plan preparation. The survey employed a semi-structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed to capture a number of specific experiences among planners such as the awareness and education variables, whereby in the first part of the questionnaire the awareness and CC education indicators were combined with the experience indicators to generate an aggregate indicator of knowledge on CCPFootnote 1; then the level of implementation of plans in terms of eight adaptation planning variables and 13 mitigation planning variables were combined to construct an aggregate indicator of CCPFootnote 2; the last section captured the observed climate abnormalities and the associated impacts. The survey responses were analysed based on the knowledge and planning indices coupled with cross tabulations which were then combined to generate information rich tables for interpretation.

For purposes of triangulating the results, it was necessary to include several interviews with experienced senior planners from one of the LGAs that has recently prepared and is implementing a land use master plan. The preparation of the Arusha Master Plan (AMP) was an initiative of the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development (MLHHSD) to develop a comprehensive plan for the city. The 2014 AMP was intended to take stock of past planning and urban development initiatives in Arusha and develop a detailed master plan for the city and its catchment areas, such as peri-urban villages of Arusha and Arumeru Districts. To probe the details of the plan, discussions were held with retired planners who worked in Arusha for more than ten years and senior planners who were currently working. In addition, local leaders in the study area and members of the community were interviewed. In 2019, local community leaders facilitated the process of searching for people and the arrangement of interviews. The analysis of interviews was through discretizing of narratives so as to organise them into specific areas and with issues that emerged in the questionnaire.

5 Results and Discussion

5.1 Respondents’ Profile

Table 7.1 suggests that approximately 46% of planners reached in this study have not had any formal training on CC. In terms of age, Table 7.1 suggests that the likelihood of attending a training programme on CC could be the same regardless of age; the younger planners seem to have a greater likelihood of not having attended any such CC training. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the likelihood of attending CC training among planners is relatively higher among females than males. Also, around 30% of those with the longest workplace stay attended CC training while none of those with the shortest workplace stay (a year or less) have ever attended similar training. Formal education for planners offers an opportunity to acquire new knowledge, especially on CC (Vasi 2006; Krause 2013; Pitt 2010; Opp et al. 2014), which is, however, dependent on the trainers’ curriculum. Lastly, it is notable that with relatively more experience come extra opportunities to access knowledge on CC.

Table 7.1 Description of survey respondents in relation to training on climate change
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5.2 The Need for Local Context and Stakeholders’ Engagement

The need for local context and stakeholders’ engagement is well enshrined into planning policies in Tanzania (URT 2000), though the extent to which they are implemented varies considerably. The preparation of the AMP was contracted to an international consulting firm presumably with planning and CC knowledgeable staff. Also, key stakeholders were involved including councillors from the ACC and ArDC. These stakeholders participated in consultation meetings and workshops. In addition, a town planner from each of the three LGAs of ACC, ADC and ArDC was appointed to work full-time with the consultants as part of the local capacity building. In this regard, the consultant did receive local support and had contacts who were required to help them gain a good understanding of the local contexts. This was confirmed by one of the respondents from the local community:

… we are aware of the AMP, we participated in the meetings held at the ADC. I do not think there are many people who are ignorant about the AMP. There was a lot of publicity and community leaders, politicians and media were involved. ….

Although the role of participatory planning is well articulated in the literature (Vedeld et al. 2015; Kweka 2017), its ability to capture local contexts in spatial planning is context-specific. The interviews repeatedly revealed that community leaders and representatives of residents in Sokoni II (an area within the AMP) and other areas were engaged during the preparation of the AMP, and yet their concerns were not addressed in the AMP. This is reflected in the following excerpt:

…, we proposed that we want this area to remain our residential area, but they have proposed high income housing. This is not only a problem in Sokoni II, but in other peri-urban settlements governed by the ACC also. For instance, in Kijenge they have earmarked the area already occupied by residents as a sports complex area.

Similarly, defining the limits of the AMP was also problematic ab initio. This was because preferences of the sitting land occupiers to be part or not part of the city were ignored, a situation that is well illustrated in the literature (Moser and Satterthwaite 2008; Bedsworth and Hanak 2013; Biesbroek et al. 2009). The city planner interviewed noted:

…many landowners in Sokoni II and other peri-urban villages under the ACC do not want to be re-categorised as urban residents. They prefer to remain rural because this gives them opportunities such as the freedom to use or build on their land or subdivide and sell/transfer without land use planning. They are also not obliged to pay land taxes.

In this regard, implementation of a plan may not only be facilitated by community participation, depending on education levels, it may be hampered by it as well (Feiock et al. 2009; Krause 2013; Pitt 2010; Sharp et al. 2011; Opp et al. 2014). What is important is that people on the ground must understand what the pros and cons are behind any proposed plan. Preferences and wishes might significantly differ between different stakeholders, but ultimately, they must be harmonised in order to arrive at viable plans (Bedsworth and Hanak 2013). Local context needs to be captured as people in developing countries have a strong connection to their land as asserted by the following respondents:

…our land is everything. We depend on it for food and income – most of the fresh vegetables, fruit, milk and so on in the city are from this area and other peri-urban settlements of the ACC. Most sitting land occupiers prefer to remain rural so as to maintain their rights and interests; but this is not what the ACC would wish.

… land especially within the peri-urban villages of the ACC is a contentious issue. It is very difficult for people in the peri-urban areas to understand why one would be part of the ACC. People are also reluctant to contribute land for public uses although they are aware of the master plan and also want better infrastructure services. We have faced this problem in the projects to regularise informal settlements. It remains unresolved despite the existence of a master plan.

Elaborating on the unregulated land use changes and development in the peri-urban villages under the ACC, a respondent (LGA senior staff) noted:

…ACC and ADC have had conflicting interests over the peri-urban land which surrounds the ACC which is administratively and legally an entity of the ADC (a rural district authority), but geographically and functionally more or less an integral part of the ACC. The ACC wants this area to be declared urban i.e., part of the ACC, whereas the ADC maintains that this is a rural area which ought to be under the ADC. None of the senior officials including the councillors in the two LGAs seem concerned about the increasing climate change induced threats such as flooding and landslides, which start in the upstream settlements (ADC) and extend downstream (ACC) and would require an integrated CCP and implementation. The dispute between the ACC and the ADC is not really about land but mainly about revenue generation activities which each of the LGAs want to access.

This excerpt suggests that even with good CC knowledge, the existing institutional setting including the laws and vested interests of policymakers, can be a real challenge to addressing and implementing CC responsive planning (Moser and Ekstrom 2010; Herslund et al. 2015).

Regarding the weak consideration of the grassroot preferences the city planner interviewed noted:

…conceptual ideas and sketches were developed by the team and local actors in Arusha; but a team which was based in Singapore generated the master plan; this was a detailed master plan with illustrations. Many good ideas were lost at the later stage because of little or lack of reference to the real conditions on the ground. The concept of participation seems to have been taken for granted and this entailed no involvement, i.e. no wonder many ideas, were collected and deliberated upon by stakeholders but not incorporated into the master plan.

The consultants for the AMP seem to have fallen into the classical trap of flying too high, failing to develop deeper insight and understanding of the contextual conditions that have for decades driven the growth of Arusha, as well as significantly shaped its current urban form and structure (Vedeld et al. 2015; Kithiia 2010; Kweka 2017). This refers, for instance, to the existing customary and quasi-customary land tenure rights and practices, and unregulated land use changes which are propelled by informal land parcelling, transactions, and development in the peri-urban areas of Arusha City including Sokoni II. Like many other major cities in the Global South, informality is the single most critical factor that is transforming Arusha and other large cities in Tanzania (Kombe 2017).

5.3 Planners’ Knowledge and Observations of Climate Anomalies

The major challenge that any planning consultant would face in Tanzania is to come to an appropriate understanding of how much knowledge there is on the ground. In the case of CC, for example, Table 7.2 presents CC-related anomalies based on planners’ experience in their respective regions. The idea is that in addition to formal training, local climate knowledge can also be acquired through experiencing the changing climate-related impacts. The figures in Table 7.2 suggest that the Coast region has experienced an upsurge in climate anomalies while responses from Dar es Salaam differed slightly in all of the three items evaluated. However, the responses suggested an 81% probability of an upsurge in climate anomalies in Dar es Salaam. From the responses, the only regions that suggested a slight downward spiral in climate anomalies were Dar es Salaam, Singida, Dodoma and Tabora, with Tabora suggesting the greatest downward spiral in climate anomalies of about 33%. Generally, planners anticipate upward climate anomalies in the four regions of Coast, Dar es Salaam, Iringa, Mtwara and Simiyu. The remaining regions are predominantly normal, based on the opinion of planners.

Table 7.2 Stated climate anomalies across regions
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Responses from Arusha suggest a 33% chance of an upsurge in CC anomalies largely due to a 100% upsurge in precipitation. If this information alone had been captured in the AMP, the consultants would have taken due care to question local communities in flood-prone areas. However, the ideas that seem to frame the concept and structure of the Arusha Master Plan (2035) and its major components have been largely drawn from general information and data on environment, social, economic and institutional contexts and some imported concepts. For instance, the proposed new Arusha Central Business District (CBD) draws inspiration from the Singapore CBD, whereas the proposed residential development in the CBD seems to have been animated by London neighbourhood redevelopment. In addition, the new fringe centre and business park and the proposed business aviation and medical tourism centre have been inspired by the Balliol Business Park WolverhamptonFootnote 3 and the Saint Tropez AirportFootnote 4 France, respectively. The AMP provides strong evidence of a case where planners have uncritically adapted from borrowed urbanism (Ong 2011). This approach has repeatedly failed to deliver appropriate results in most cities in the Global South. Although knowledgeable people were involved in the preparation of the AMP, there is little to suggest that their knowledge was contextualised to capture local experiences.

The observations on the AMP processes provide an opportunity to further re-examine the type of knowledge held by planners, specifically on which aspects of human settlements are extremely affected by CC. Table 7.3 analyses the responses in terms of six potential areas of CC impacts. From a planners’ perspective, human settlement is the most affected sector, potentially reflecting upon their sphere of knowledge. This is followed by water resources and ecosystem changes. Region-wise the greatest, overall worsening impacts are observed in Mbeya, Pwani, Simuyu and Singida. However, in terms of human settlements, the greatest worsening impacts of CC were reported by planners from Arusha, Mbeya, Mtwara, Pwani, Simuyu and Singida. This is, however, the case if the responses are not weighted by the number of responses. With respondents factored in, Dar es Salaam has the worst of all CC impacts. Planners in Arusha suggest that Arusha is greatly affected by CC impacts, especially to human settlements, a view which should have been incorporated into the AMP.

Table 7.3 Planners’ predicted probability of worsening climate-induced changes in their workplace regions in Tanzania
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5.4 Planners’ Climate Change Knowledge and Planning Practices

To obtain some insights into CCA strategies across the urban centres which the respondents represented, Table 7.4 provides a summary of the observations on the implementation of different CCA strategies. Across regions, earmarking and implementation is only relevant for “raising public awareness and participation” and for the other strategies the planners suggested implementing without earmarking. Based on current planning practices it seems adaptation measures have limited scope in the planning process, partly because adaptation is principally carried out on an individual basis in reaction to a perceived risk at a particular point in time. This however does not mean that planning is irrelevant, but that the inefficiency of individual actions to address a spatially spreading problem requires coordination in planning (Herslund et al. 2015).

Table 7.4 Planners’ ranking of adaptation planning in their respective LGAs
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Contrary to CCA strategies, most CCM strategies require adequate spatial planning prior to implementation. The AMP considered and provided for passive and active areas for recreation; agricultural land; water bodies; nature conservation; parks and so on. Also, innovative ideas on public transport, such as a three corridor rapid bus transport (BRT) system were proposed. These described provisions constitute CCM strategies. which are better placed for planning than CCA. Table 7.5 provides the ranking of earmarking and implementation of 13 CCM strategies by respondent planners. Table 7.5 shows that only “infill development & reuse of brownfield sites” were earmarked and implemented beyond 50% (these score 76%). Other strategies scored above 50% only on one side of earmarking or implementation: they include “raising public awareness and participation”, protection of “vegetation (forests/woodlands)”; “watershed-based/ ecosystem-based land management” and “creation of conservation protection zones or areas”. These percentages suggest that many of the CC strategies, for example, conservation areas, can be implemented in many of the cities in the Global South even if not formally declared as conservation zones. For instance, in many traditional societies of Tanzania, conservation of nature has been among the prime objectives of customary land use controls. This was also evident in the case of the AMP where the interviews of the Project Affected People (PAP) suggested a strong tradition of environmental conservation strategies. This is evident in the following excerpt from one interviewee:

…regarding the protection of nature (i.e., forest, streams, and soil) people are aware, although they might not say so, that most landowners grew up in this area (Sokon) when it was a vast expanse of evergreen. Protection of the environment is part of our culture and was held in high regard to our parents and grandparents. We have local norms, values, and traditions to protect the natural environment, such as forests, water sources and streams, and valleys. In the 70s and 80s the government conducted training on environmental and soil conservation (terracing) and protection of traditional exotic tree species (such as Pinus patulaand, Eastern red cedar). People were forbidden from cutting down such trees and other plants in the forest. We were told frightening stories about the existence of wild man-eating animals in the public forest bordering the settlement (Sokoni); these were intended to scare residents from encroaching on the public forest. The situation has changed now, the streams, valleys, and trees in Sokoni II are disappearing.

Table 7.5 Ranking of mitigation planning in LGAs
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The potential for CCM strategies within the local customary environment is also reflected in the following excerpts:

… in the old days, we were only allowed to cultivate the land once a year in order to protect the environment. Also, terracing was mandatory, agricultural officers used to visit and inspect farms in Sokoni II and other areas; those who were doing very well were rewarded...

The preceding excerpt underscores the carrot–stick approaches in the traditional agricultural practices aimed to conserve the environment. The extensive conservation of green and blue areas constitutes an important consideration towards the amelioration of adverse impacts of CC and variation. Yet it is difficult to imagine how such ideas would be achieved given the unresolved and contentious customary land tenure issues involving vested interests in the peripheries of Arusha, as well as the Sokoni II settlement. There are also challenges in regulating in use and development in areas under customary land tenure as illustrated in the following excerpts:

…given the high demand for vegetables and fruit in the city, the lack of employment or alternative income generation opportunities coupled with the high price of land, it is difficult to convince farmers to abide by the traditional farming practices. Nowadays, cultivation is done throughout the year; no wonder erosion and landslides are increasing.

Population pressures, and communication and technological changes are basically alien to customs and traditions in agriculture. These coupled with the monetisation of rural economies, are exerting pressure on the limited land resources. The challenges facing the conservation of land under customary tenure are further illustrated as follows:

…rapid population growth and socioeconomic changes in the city have pushed the demand and price of land up. This is especially so in settlements such as Sokoni II, Kwa Mrombo, Sakina, Mbauda, and Sekei. Most importantly, traditional customs require that a head of household parcels and allocates housing land to his grown-up sons. My father had five acres, I inherited only two acres in the 1970s, my brother got the rest. About ten years ago, I gave each of my four sons a place to build their own house, i.e., less than half an acre. I also sold a small portion to a relative. I am now only left with a small piece for my last born. Because of the shrinking size of land holdings, increasing demand and rising prices, it is difficult to protect fragile areas, especially those within the residential and farming areas.

Traditional conservation strategies, such as protection of plants on steep slopes and valley terracing, and fallow cultivation, have failed largely because of increased demands for land, and unregulated market forces that have exerted pressure on land under customary tenure. Most individuals are also concerned about the use of their land parcel without any coordination with adjoining landholders. Despite its significance, especially in food production, Arusha District Council officials are seldom involved in monitoring conservation matters in the peri-urban areas. Current land use practices are increasing runoff upstream and flooding in the downstream areas of Arusha. The interviews revealed that floods have increased because of human activities such as the clearing of vegetation and house construction.

…floods have frequently affected many areas of the city, this includes the 2017 event which led to the loss of life and extensive damage to roads, drainage systems and housing in the midstream and downstream areas such as the Phillips, Njiro and Kwa Mrombo settlements. The loss of property and life is a result of the extensive clearance of vegetation, unregulated land use changes, and construction activities upstream, as well as encroachment on the public forest, steep hill slides, and streams and rivers in the peri-urban villages.

LGAs may earmark the four CCM strategies in Table 7.5 (S/N 1–4) in their plans, but implementation is likely to raise many challenges primarily because of the low priority given to CC matters by bureaucrats and little knowledge on the subject among decision-makers; also, weak institutional coordination within the City Council hampered by the compartmentalised departments of the Council. Most importantly, the fact that multiple authorities are involved in the land earmarked for conservation in urban plans, and weak or lack of vertical coordination are also threats to the implementation of CCM and CCA strategies (Herslund et al. 2015). There are also challenges associated with the malpractices in the informal land development and environmental conservation practices. Mistrust is evident among individuals towards community leaders primarily because many are reported to be involved in corruption in the informal land transactions (Kombe 2017). The following excerpt further illustrates:

… when people subdivide, sell, or build with no regard for the master plan/building regulations, we cannot do anything. I once asked my neighbour who had bought land and started building a house very close to a stream, why he was doing so. He angrily responded that I have hatred and I am jealous because he (the neighbour) bought the land without involving me. I felt bad; this is not unusual. Often local leaders do not intervene because they are accomplices in land deals, they get a commission. In the past elderly, traditional leaders were highly respected but these days they are also ignored.

The proceeding excerpt signals mistrust, and lack of commitment among elected leaders which hampers CCP in developing countries and particularly in Tanzania (Stevens and Senbel 2017; Shi et al. 2015; Bedsworth and Hanak 2013).

Formal training on CC, professional experience, and tacit traditional knowledge on customary practices in conservation constitute important sources of knowledge on CCP. Professionals are expected not only to involve local communities but also incorporate their proposals and experiences which have proved useful in planning. The relationship between CCP and knowledge for planners working in Dar es Salaam is presented in Fig. 7.2 while the same relationship for regions other than Dar es Salaam, Dodoma and Mtwara is presented in Fig. 7.3. It is clear from both figures that CC knowledge enhances CCP, with the exception of very high levels of knowledge for which the observations are contradictory. These contra views reflect highly knowledgeable planners who are unable to apply their knowledge because of either environment, regulatory constraints, or limited political commitment as previously noted. For instance, any attempt to accommodate all the key knowledge issues (i.e. some of the ideas presented in Table. 7.4 and 7.5), covering formal, and customary knowledge and practices into a plan, may cause the plan to be rejected or delay its approval due to conflicting or vested interests of particular business elites.

Fig. 7.2
A line graph between mean overall climate change planning and knowledge of climate change planning for the region of Dar es Salaam, has a linear relationship, but for high levels of knowledge, results are otherwise.

(Source Author’s Fieldwork 2019)

Proportion of climate change planning in relation to knowledge

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Fig. 7.3
A line graph between mean overall climate change planning and knowledge of climate change planning for regions other than Dar es Salaam has a linear relationship, but for high levels of knowledge, results are otherwise.

(Source Author’s Fieldwork 2019)

Climate change planning and knowledge for regions other than Dar es Salaam, Dodoma and Mtwara

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Assessment of Fig. 7.2 suggests that Dar es Salaam, Dodoma and Mtwara planning practices are weak in terms of CCP. This could result in the unregulated land development or informality which predominates not only in Dar es Salaam but also other major cities of the Global South (Kombe 2017). Respondents also confessed that current land market dynamics, especially high prices, were a real challenge to the conservation agenda and initiatives. Just as in Dar es Salaam and other urban centres Informality does arise as a serious problem for the AMP (Kombe 2017). Experience of planners from Dar es Salaam and similar cities are seldom shaped by conservation practices of local communities since environmental conservation of forests (except large protected public forests outside the city), rivers, watershed and the like is seldom observable in the major cities.

The observation in Dar es Salaam could also be relevant in Arusha, but data limitation prevented a similar analysis as in Fig. 7.2. The AMP proposal to resettle peri-urban land occupiers in areas such as Sokoni II ignored the socio-cultural and economic needs and interests of sitting land occupiers. Reacting to this a respondent furiously noted:

… instead of supporting livelihoods and basic services such as storm water drains to control erosion, landslides upstream, and floods downstream the AMP proposed to evict and resettle us. How do they expect us to give away our ancestral land which is a walking distance to the city centre?

Any meaningful engagement with stakeholders, particularly local communities and institutions at Mtaa, Ward levels, and LGAs, ought to inform and generate knowledge, on the basis of which context for planning for CCA and CCM has to be grounded, although corruption in the land sector and lack of political commitment are real barriers to such initiatives.

6 Conclusion and Recommendation

Based on the observations in this study, a broader definition of CC knowledge inevitably entails an integrated approach that creates a positive relationship between CC knowledge and CCP. The challenge is, however, to capture local knowledge and experiences for incorporation into spatial plans. There are also disparities in the relationship between CC knowledge and CCP for major cities as contrasted to smaller cities. Larger cities are less likely to capture local conservation strategies as part of CC initiatives, thus lagging behind rural and smaller towns in CCP endeavours. With these observations being triangulated in the case of the AMP in terms of the concerns at the local level coupled with several other challenges, it is suggested that planning knowledge, practices and plans for cities in the Global South would be flawed if contextual drivers of urban land use development and barriers to CCA and CCM are underestimated. Knowledge and good planning for addressing CC ought to address the problems of CC threats whilst bringing direct socioeconomic and environmental benefits to the poorer social groups whose livelihoods may be threatened by CCP, and who depend on the limited resources available, especially land rights to survive.

Unregulated informal land market and changes of use with the continued proliferation of informal settlements further compound the problem. This includes the undermining of food production and the decreasing income of many poor households. From the case of the AMP, it was clear that the proposals sharply contrasted the subsistence land use and development dynamics; firstly, the AMP appears to have been largely conceived and executed technocratically with little recognition of local specificities such as socio-cultural, economic and institutional contexts. The planning ideas bring to the fore what has been repeatedly observed: the over-emphasis of technical niceties of plans and the disregard of problematic socio-cultural and economic forces that, in fact, drive urban land development and undermine CCA and CCM initiatives. The tendency to see CCP as a non-local issue but as a global agenda instead is a real impediment to meaningful planning and budgeting management at the local level. The problem is further compounded by limited capacity/knowledge and will among bureaucrats, LGAs, officials, and central government policymakers.

The establishment of institutional mechanisms for ensuring CCP and structures for auditing and reporting is equally necessary. The current tendency towards centralised governance in decision-making must be re-examined to give voice to those at the levels where CC hazards are most felt and impacts most apparent. City/municipal level officials including bureaucrats/planners must be held accountable for what their specific authorities/units have done and achieved to plan for, prepare, and implement local adaptation/mitigation plans. They also must collaborate with other stakeholders to implement land use plans and take other measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the vulnerability of urban settlements to CC hazards. This includes the adaption of community/local experiences and practices that have directly or indirectly contributed to CCA and mitigation. Unregulated informality is the key driver of the current land use changes and abuses in the city. But the AMP land use proposals, for instance, in the peri-urban areas have underestimated informality, diverse actors, and interests. The AMP proposal seems to oversimplify the complexities of real urbanisation in the Global South; the master planners simply pushed informality away in lieu of middle-income housing. One of the measures to take according to the literature and local realities is to treat informality first as a solution, and then strive to nurture and adapt it to CC imperatives (Kombe 2017).

The need for institutional mechanisms to promote horizontal and vertical coordination among stakeholders and institutions involved in various matters that concern land use and CCA and CCM conservation at various levels cannot be over-emphasised. The capacity to adapt to CC cannot be achieved without coordination at the city and community level and among sitting land occupiers. Affirmative and coordinated actions to work with the grassroots communities, integrated planning of the larger part of the city coupled with empowerment of local governments are necessary measures to institutionalise CC knowledge adaptation into spatial planning and implementation.