Browsing by Author "Temba, Ferdinand M."

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Can legislative reform reshape climate governance? evaluating Tanzania’s environmental management (amendment) act, 2025, as a legal foundation for carbon market regulation
(The sub Saharan Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities (SJSSH), 2026-03-30) Temba, Ferdinand M.
The intensifying urgency of climate change demands that national legal systems move beyond discretionary policy frameworks toward enforceable regulatory architectures that integrate mitigation, adaptation, and market-based mechanisms. This article addresses a central question facing developing countries: how can domestic law effectively translate global climate governance norms into binding institutional and compliance structures? Using Tanzania as a critical case study following its recent legislative reforms, the article examines the extent to which the Environmental Management (Amendment) Act, 2025, establishes a legally grounded framework for climate governance and carbon market regulation. Employing a doctrinal and qualitative analytical methodology, the study systematically analyzes primary legal sources; including the amended Act, subsidiary regulations, and institutional mandates; situating these within broader global and regional climate governance frameworks under the Paris Agreement and African Union climate strategies. The analysis reveals that the 2025 amendments effectuate a fundamental normative transformation by embedding climate change within statutory definitions, creating the National Carbon Monitoring Centre as a dedicated oversight institution, mandating climate-sensitive environmental assessments, and establishing legally binding systems for monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) of greenhouse gas emissions. These reforms collectively construct an institutional architecture that aligns domestic law with the integrity and transparency requirements of Article 6 carbon markets. However, inferential analysis of the framework's practical implications suggests that the legal provisions alone are insufficient to guarantee effective implementation. The study identifies critical dependencies: institutional capacity constraints at sub-national levels, unresolved customary land tenure disputes that threaten carbon project viability, gaps in technical expertise for robust MRV systems, and the absence of clearly defined, legally enforceable benefit-sharing mechanisms. These factors collectively mediate the gap between legal formality and governance effectiveness. The article contributes empirically by providing a systematic analysis of a recent legislative reform within an underexplored African context, and theoretically by demonstrating how polycentric governance principles can be operationalized through domestic legal design. It concludes that while the 2025 Act provides a necessary and credible legal foundation, its transformative potential will be realized only through sustained institutional strengthening, targeted capacity-building, and complementary regulatory measures that address land rights and benefit distribution. The study recommends prioritizing investments in sub-national institutional capacity, finalizing regulations that reconcile customary and statutory land tenure for carbon projects, and embedding participatory governance mechanisms to ensure that carbon market participation delivers both environmental integrity and equitable socio-economic outcomes.
Enforcing the right to health through courts in Tanzania: challenges and prospects
(Journal of Contemporary African Legal Studies (JCALS), 2025) Temba, Ferdinand M.
The right to health is recognized as a fundamental human right within international, regional, and domestic legal frameworks. This article explores its judicial enforcement in Tanzania using a doctrinal legal methodology that analyses statutory provisions and case law. It challenges the view that socio-economic rights are non- justiciable, affirming that the right to health is a universally applicable entitlement that can be subject to immediate enforcement. The article identifies factors for effective enforcement, including political legitimacy, judicial capacity, and legal expertise. Major challenges include the lack of express constitutional protection of the right to health, resource constraints, and partial alignment with international legal obligations. Nevertheless, the study underscores underlying prospects such as the progressive interpretation of the right to health through the constitutional guarantee of the right to life under Article 14, and the adoption of legal, policy, and institutional reforms, which promote better health outcomes in Tanzania.
Governing epidemics as disasters through law: lessons from COVID-19 in assessing Tanzania’s public health and disaster management frameworks
(Journal of Policy and Leadership (JPL), 2026-03-24) Temba, Ferdinand M.
This article analyses how Tanzania's legal and institutional frameworks shaped the management of epidemics as disasters during the COVID-19 pandemic. Focusing on the Public Health Act, 2009, and the Disaster Management Act No. 6 of 2022, the study applies doctrinal legal analysis and risk- governance concepts to examine statutory mandates, policy instruments, and institutional practice. The findings show that the Public Health Act provided a clear legal basis for disease surveillance, quarantine, isolation, and control, while the Disaster Management Act established a multisectoral coordination framework. However, implementation gaps constrained their effectiveness. Despite the presence of supporting policy instruments, including the National Disaster Management Strategy (2022–2027) and the Tanzania Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan, epidemic governance was weakened by the absence of a formal disaster declaration, reliance on non-binding standard operating procedures, uneven inter-institutional coordination, and persistent inequalities in access to public health services. Although the disaster framework mandates institutional coordination, mainstreaming of disaster risk reduction, and community-based disaster management, these mechanisms were only partially realised during the pandemic.Nevertheless, the legal framework enabled rapid public health interventions and supported elements of a multisectoral response during a complex and evolving emergency. The article argues that Tanzania's epidemic preparedness can be strengthened through closer harmonisation of statutes and policy instruments, codification of operational guidelines, clearer disaster activation thresholds, integration of digital monitoring systems, and the embedding of rights-based safeguards. Therefore, the study underscores the importance of legal preparedness in strengthening disaster risk governance and resilience to future epidemics.