Dar es Salaam. Good morning! The Chanzo is here with a rundown of major news stories reported in Tanzania on Monday, November 7, 2022.
French investigators set to help probe Bukoba plane crash
French air accident investigators are expected in Tanzania anytime from now to help probe the plane accident involving flight PW-494, property of Precision Air, which crashed at Lake Victoria in Bukoba, killing 19 people, Reuters reported on Monday.
The media outlet referred to a spokesperson for France’s BEA air accident investigation agency who said that it was bringing a team to the country along with technical advisers from Franco-Italian planemaker ATR, which built the ATR 42-500 turboprop.
The aircraft, 5H-PWF, ATR42-500, was flying from Dar es Salaam to Bukoba when the accident occurred around 08:53 am. According to a statement by Precision Air released on Sunday, there were 39 passengers (38 adults and one infant) and four crew on board the crew.
Reuters reported that under international rules, the locally-led investigation would usually include the participation of authorities in France, where the plane was designed, and Canada, where its Pratt & Whitney engines were developed.
The media outlet quoted ATR as saying that it was “fully engaged to support the customer and the investigation.”
Full story here.
Fear as albino persecution makes a comeback in Tanzania
A coalition of non-government organisations (NGOs) warned here today, November 7, 2022, that people with albinism in Tanzania risk being persecuted if the government will not take “immediate and serious” measures to protect them.
Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition (THRDC) and Tanzania Albinism Society (TAS) made a joint statement following the death of Joseph Mathias.
Mathias, 50, died on November 2, 2022, in Mwanza after losing a lot of blood caused by the hacking off of his right arm by persecutors, something that the NGOs think was motivated by nothing apart from his albinism.
According to the United Nations, some 75 albinos were reportedly killed between 2000 and 2016 in Tanzania.
UN names the East African nation as one of the sub-Saharan African countries where ritual killings of albinos are prevalent, with estimates of 1 in 1,400 people being affected.
Thanks to coordinated efforts by authorities and NGOs, no incident of albino persecution was reported in Tanzania since 2016.
But stakeholders fear that if deliberate efforts are not taken, the relief people with albinism have been enjoying now will go away before very long.
LHRC Executive Director Anna Henga told journalists during a joint press conference at the centre’s office in Dar es Salaam that strict legal actions against all perpetrators of persecution of people with albinism need to be taken.
“These [legal] measures are important because they will act as a deterrent to others,” Ms Henga told journalists. “The perpetrators include the witch doctors. Deliberate efforts to disrupt the market of albino body parts should be taken.”
Full story here.
Govt to sign $30 billion LNG-project accords next month
Energy Minister January Makamba told BNN Bloomberg on Monday that the government is expecting to sign key agreements with oil majors including Equinor ASA and Shell Plc next month to pave the way for a planned $30 billion liquefied natural gas export project.
The project, delayed by years of prolonged negotiations, has gained urgency as European countries look for liquefied natural gas projects that can be long-term replacements for energy supplies from Russia, the website reported.
Speaking with BNN Bloomberg on the sidelines of the ongoing COP27 international climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Mr Makamba, who doubles as Bumbuli MP (Chama cha Mapinduzi – CCM), said “it’s happening.”
“In December, we will conclude the conversation,” BNN Bloomberg quoted Mr Makamba as saying. “We are in the fiscal package discussions now.”
On June 11, 2022, President Samia Suluhu Hassan witnessed the signing of the initial agreements for the construction of the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant worth $30 billion, calling the project “lucrative.”
The deal foresees a final investment decision by 2025, and a start of operations by 2029-2030 at a liquefied natural gas plant to be built in Tanzania’s southern coastal town of Lindi.
According to the signed agreements, the project will be implemented by Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) and International Oil and Gas Companies (IOCs), which include Shell, Pavilion Energy Tanzania, Medco Energy, Equinor and ExxonMobil.
Mr Makamba said the accords to be signed in December will include the final Host Government Agreement, which spells out the terms of the project, the project law and the benefit-sharing agreement.
A final investment decision could be reached in January 2025, allowing exports to start before 2030, he said.
Mr Makamba told BNN Bloomberg also that Tanzania is doing all it can and employing new technologies to make its gas less dirty, Makamba said.
“The project will be designed in such a way that it will be the cleanest gas project ever,” Mr Makamba was quoted as saying. “The gas chemistry itself, it’s one of the amazingly gas with the lowest CO2 content in the world.”
COP27: How radios help rural women in Tanzania stay tuned into climate change
As UN climate summit COP27 kicks off in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, the World Food Programme (WFP) looks at how tech can keep rural communities up to speed with weather events, the UN agency said in a statement on Monday.
The organisation told the story of Jacqueline Tesha who remembers playing all day in the sparkling river around her grandparents’ home in the foothills of Tanzania’s mount Kilimanjaro. But going back today, there is no river.
“You can’t even trace where the river was coming from. There’s no water, there’s nothing,” says Tesha. “You can clearly tell the climate has changed.”
Not even the glaciers melting on Africa’s highest mountain, another change since Tesha’s childhood, are replenishing once-overflowing waters.
Now, the Tanzanian environmental and climate expert is working to find solutions for a continent on the frontlines of the climate crisis — by helping rural women in her homeland access vital weather and climate information.
Over the coming year, Tesha is also taking on a new role: working to develop climate tools at the World Food Programme‘s headquarters in Rome (as part of a multi-year, Norwegian-funded programme, aimed to get more female scientists into the world of climate action).
“The climate crisis is devastating communities across Africa, and women and girls are being left behind,” Tesha says. “We must halt the crisis and help people adapt.”
Finding the right channels to communicate key climate information will be essential to that goal. While Africa contributes just 4 per cent of the world’s soaring greenhouse gas emissions, the continent is being hammered by the fallout.
Already it is seeing shrivelled harvests, extreme weather events, mass migration and rising poverty and hunger — all byproducts of a changing climate that risk only getting worse. The UN expects glaciers like those on mount Kilimanjaro to “vanish in two decades” amid fears that GDP in sub-Saharan Africa could shrink by 3 per cent by 2050.
Working in Tanzania’s climate services over the past eight years, Tesha has worked with organizations that gather climate and weather information, such as rainfall and temperature. They also train communities on how to interpret and use the information to better anticipate and prepare.
It’s not as simple as it sounds, however.
“We realized that the information is not always relevant, or not reaching the target audiences in a timely manner,” Tesha says. “Or sometimes people don’t understand the information.”
She is working with communities to change that. “Sometimes you can distribute the information via a website, television, radio or text,” she says of alternative climate and weather platforms that are always available in local languages. However, “some people cannot read and so we send voice messages.”
Reaching women in rural communities is especially challenging. “Many families only have one mobile phone or radio, and the man takes it with him wherever he goes”, Tesha says, “meaning women don’t receive vital warnings.”
Adding to their challenges, many rural women are usually not part of community decision-making. And yet they are key players when disasters hit. Men often migrate in search of work when that happens – leaving women, already juggling children and household chores, in charge of farming as well.
“Women must be part of the solution,” says Jesse Mason, head of WFP’s anticipatory action programmes. “The climate crisis affects them much more than men, yet they are not being included in decision-making or even receiving crucial information.”
“Having more women like Tesha involved in climate services at the community level will mean more appropriate and effective climate action for all,” he adds.
Over the coming year, Tesha will support WFP efforts to develop and integrate climate services tools into programmes to better anticipate and mitigate disasters.
Her WFP experience will also inform her work when she goes back to Tanzania and inspires other budding female scientists.
“We all know that climate change impacts women more than men,” she says. “So, having more female experts is very important.”
Already, Tesha is breaking norms in her own family, where members have pursued more traditional careers in medicine and law.
Today, they jokingly seek her advice, she says: “On what the weather forecast will be each day.”
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