Many Tanzanians do not know impact of climate change: minister

DAR ES SALAAM, March 26 (Xinhua) -- A good number of Tanzanians still did not understand climate change, its effects and how to deal with it, making it difficult to fully implement government plans to alleviate poverty, Minister of State in the Vice-President's Office responsible for Union and Environment, January Makamba, said on Tuesday.

Makamba observed that while climate change has great and adverse effects, interventions to deal with it were not always welcomed and supported by most members of the public, calling for more efforts from different stakeholders.

Makamba called for the need for rightful statistics by relevant authorities that showed real situations on the ground on how climate change has caused damage and was likely to do more harm in the near future if not controlled.

Speaking while officiating the opening of an inception workshop on National Environment and climate change Data, Makamba said more awareness creation on effects of climate change was needed.

"It is important to have evidence backed with right statistics to help convince policymakers on the need to act swiftly to alleviate effects of the menace," he said.

Makamba, who acknowledged that there are various stakeholders with different statistics on environmental issues, said it was only prudent that they worked jointly under the National Bureau of Statistics in order to have rightful uniform data that can help bring desired changes.

He added that there was need to have a strong institution with technical, human and financial muscles to collect, scrutinize and disseminate statistics on environment.

"Data help provide early warning on the situation at hand, thus those other institutions producing statistics on environment should have it harmonized by NBS," he said.