In Tanzania, the effects of climate change are already being felt. There is an acute awareness of the vulnerability of Tanzania’s agriculture sector to the variabilities of changing weather patterns, rainfall intensity, and drought. The adverse impacts of climate change in agriculture sectors with changes in seasonal rainfall patterns have already been documented as shifting agricultural production and productivity and damaging crops. Sierra Leone has the highest average annual rainfall of any African country and is exposed to sea level rise and extreme temperatures. It has made remarkable strides in peacebuilding since the decade-long civil war of the 1990s, which killed over 50,000 people and displaced 2 million. However, the impact of the conflict is apparent in the residual damage to its infrastructure, the resettlement of populations in unplanned urban areas, and the impact on education and literacy levels, all of which contribute to climate vulnerability and data needs today.
Sierra Leone and Tanzania are in the process of assessing progress in the generation and release of environmental data needed for the implementation of the SDGs, and the case studies presented in this report assess (i) whether existing climate initiatives have a robust open data focus, (ii) the types of data sets collected and released, (iii) how a variety of stakeholders are making use of available climate-relevant data, and (iv) the perspective of key stakeholders on the implementation of rules and norms around sharing, publication, and use of climate-relevant data.
