Luther Bois Anukur, Regional Director of IUCN ESARO, interviewed at the IUCN Regional Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IP

By Isaiah Esipisu
NAIROBI, Mar 3 2026 (IPS)

As the global community marks 2026 World Wildlife Day today (March 3), this year’s focus is on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants: Conserving Health, Heritage and Livelihoods. However, beneath these celebrations, a difficult question emerges: who will bear the cost of conservation when traditional donor funding becomes uncertain and in the face of climate change?

With geopolitical shifts causing traditional funders to tighten their budgets, conservation across Africa has reached a critical juncture.

In an exclusive interview with Luther Bois Anukur, the Regional Director for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Eastern and Southern Africa, we explore how governments must now go further by creating space for community-led biodiversity conservation initiatives to evolve into sustainable enterprises. We discuss why protecting biodiversity matters as much as maintaining roads or power grids and why national budgets should consider it a priority.

IPS: With conservation donors tightening their budget, how serious is this funding shift for Africa, and what risks does it create for biodiversity protection?

Anukur: Overall, there has been a shrinking of financing for biodiversity conservation, especially with the closing of USAID, which was a big financier for biodiversity work in Africa. This came as a shock and certainly slowed down the work of biodiversity conservation in Africa because some organisations have gone under, and some projects have closed altogether.

However, having said that, there is a huge opportunity for Africa to relook at biodiversity financing models. Indeed, relying on donor funding is not the right way to finance biodiversity conservation. Biodiversity is not a charitable cause. It is actually part of the sovereign natural assets, and so we need to look at ways in which countries can link their economies to biodiversity conservation.

For example, you’ll find that what underpins our economies in Africa is fresh water, agriculture, tourism, and energy, and all these form the backbone of biodiversity conservation.

IPS: African communities often live with wildlife and bear the costs of conservation. How possibly can this be turned into community-led initiatives that can evolve into sustainable enterprises?

Anukur: First and foremost, people in Africa have lived alongside wildlife for many years. However, the cost of living with wildlife has been very high, because you find there’s crop loss, there’s loss of livestock, and even loss of lives. Yet, we have not seen benefits go to communities in a proportional manner.

To change this, there is certainly a need to rethink and redesign our conservation efforts so that communities can be right at the centre. We need to see benefits going to communities in an equitable manner that is commensurate to the services and the sacrifices they provide by living alongside wildlife.

We need to stop seeing communities as beneficiaries but as leaders of conservation efforts. And when we do that, then we will go a long way in conserving wildlife.

IPS: Why should finance ministries in Africa treat conservation as a core national investment rather than an environmental afterthought

Anukur: In many cases, ministers of finance look at risks, they look at assets, and they look at returns. That is what they usually understand. But very clearly, nature is Africa’s largest asset. And so investing in our environment basically means that we are supporting our water systems, our agriculture, our fisheries, and our ecosystems. That basically means that we are strengthening our economies.

The reverse is true. If we do not support that, we will face disasters. We are going to have a higher impact from climate change, and we are going to get into food imports. When you balance the books, investing in conservation makes sense, as it will ultimately affect national economies. So investing in natural assets will greatly support the GDPs of our countries and the livelihoods of our people.

IPS: Can you share examples of models that governments should be using to support protection of biodiversity as well as community-led conservation initiatives?

Anukur: There have been good examples in Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Kenya, among other countries, which have been able to demonstrate that community-led conservation can generate not only ecological recoveries but also economic returns.

But the key thing with these models is that you need to secure the land rights, make sure that there is accountable governance, and that revenue flows directly to communities. There is also a need to have partnerships with multi-stakeholders, especially the ethical private sector.

IPS: Tools like the IUCN Red List and Green List provide data on species and protected areas. How can governments better use these frameworks to move beyond reactive conservation decisions toward long-term, evidence-based policies?

Anukur: IUCN has got quite a number of tools; we have the red list of species, which basically looks at extinction risk, but we also have the green list, which looks at how effectively we manage our ecosystems. Governments have extensively used these tools as reference documents.

However, we would want to see these tools being used to build evidence for planning. This is because when you plan well, then you are able to avert risks. For instance, you need these tools to plan roads, infrastructure, agriculture, and mining.

IPS: Many African governments face pressure to expand infrastructure, agriculture, and extractive industries. What strategies can realistically balance economic development with ecosystem protection, especially for communities living closest to nature?

Anukur: There has been a big debate for a very long time about whether Africa should prioritise development or whether it should be conservation. But that debate is now very old. What we are focusing on is moving from extractive growth to generative growth. We also need to balance everything. For example, you can do agriculture but ensure that you have healthy soils. You can do energy transition in a manner that is not degrading to the environment. Or even create infrastructure that avoids critical ecosystems.

The most important thing is that there should be cross-sectoral collaboration. We have seen environmental and conservation issues treated as an afterthought. We would want the environment to be right at the centre of budget projections, as well; communities should also be brought to the centre for people to benefit from natural assets.

IPS: As we celebrate World Wildlife Day, what message would you give to African governments regarding the conservation of biodiversity?

Anukur: This time is an opportune moment when the world is changing. At the moment we have a lot of geopolitical change. We also do have a lot of geo-economic change. If Africa is to look at itself, the biggest asset is already what we have. The continent is viewed as poor, but the truth is that Africa is not poor. All we need is to connect with our natural assets and use them for development.

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Excerpt:

A vendor speaks to a customer at a second-hand clothes market in Mutare, Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
MUTARE, Zimbabwe, Oct 23 2025 (IPS)

Shamiso Marambanyika assists a male customer in selecting a pair of jeans on a Saturday morning in Mutare, a city in the eastern part of Zimbabwe.

The 38-year-old mother of three showed the customer a brand of Marks and Spencer, commonly known as M&S, a British retailer based in London.

“I can give you this for 5 dollars,” Marambanyika screamed to the customer, who later picked out a different pair of jeans. She is a vendor at a popular market for secondhand clothes in Sakubva, a densely populated suburb in Mutare, near the border with Mozambique.

Some of the popular brands of jeans Marambanyika had in her stock include Hennes & Mauritz, known as H&M from Sweden, and Levi’s and Old from the United States. These secondhand clothes are dumped in Western countries like the United Kingdom, shipped to Africa, and smuggled into Zimbabwe through Mutare, the gateway to the Indian Ocean in Mozambique.

The clothes are so cheap that one can get three T-shirts for USD 1. This has had repercussions not only on the local textile industry but also on the environment in Africa.

Pushing Local Clothing Manufacturers and Retailers Out of Business

Some clothing companies left by the British are struggling because of secondhand clothes and Zimbabwe’s ailing economy. Truworths Zimbabwe, a fashion retail chain established in 1957, closed about 34 of the 101 stores it operated in the late 1990s. To cut its operating costs, Truworths also reduced its workforce at its manufacturing division in the capital, Harare.

Bekithemba Ndebele, chief executive officer at Truworths Zimbabwe, confirmed to IPS that the company was sold because it was struggling. After going insolvent, Truworths was sold for USD 1 and officially delisted from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange in July 2025.

Last year, Truworths released a statement that the company could not compete with cheap imports. Ndebele declined to give further details. These formal clothing businesses cannot compete with thousands of individuals who sell smuggled secondhand clothes at markets in cities across the country, in the streets and from car boots.

At Marambanyika’s market in Sakubva, there are more than 1000 vending stalls, each vocally advertising their goods to attract potential customers. In Mutare city center, tens of vendors pay USD 6 per day to sell secondhand clothes on weekends. Unlike these vendors who do not pay taxes, retailers like Truworths pay taxes and are forced to use volatile local currency.

Rashweat Mukundu, a social commentator based in Harare, says economic hardship forces many to resort to secondhand clothes. “This is an overall economic challenge. Many people have no choice but to go and buy secondhand clothes because they cannot afford the new clothes sold in the organized retail sector,” he says.

In retail outlets, a pair of jeans costs at least USD 20.

Marambanyika, who hails from Buhera in Manicaland Province, was pushed into the secondhand clothing trade in 2023 after failing to secure a job. She pays USD 115 to a middleman known as a transporter who will buy a bale weighing 45 kilograms from Beira, a city and one of the business ports in Mozambique. “Prices vary with the quality of the jeans. There are about 100 pairs of jeans in a bale. I make a profit of USD 55 from each bale, and it takes two weeks to sell them all,” Marambanyika says, adding that she pays USD 22 monthly to the local authority.

Anesu Mugabe, a clothing designer and manufacturer based in Harare, says these secondhand clothes are often sold at extremely low prices, making it impossible for local manufacturers to compete.

“For instance, you can find a pair of jeans for as little as USD 2. This is unheard of in local retail stores. This has led to a significant decline in sales for us, forcing us to scale down our operations or even shut down altogether,” says Mugabe, who is now targeting corporates as a survival strategy.

Threat to the Environment 

Across Africa, from Kenya to Nigeria, cheap secondhand clothes are polluting the environment, according to a new report, Trashion: The Stealth Export of Waste Plastic Clothes to Kenya, published in February 2023.

Other recycling companies argue that the trade reduces waste in the Global South, but some environmental experts believe the trade is doing the opposite. Research shows that in Kenya, secondhand clothes are dumped in rivers and landfills. “What we are seeing is not recycling but dumping second-hand clothing from the West,” says Nyasha Mpahlo, executive director at Green Governance. “Unfortunately, there is no mechanism to dispose of the waste from secondhand clothes. Secondhand clothing is found in landfills. The industry is also causing carbon emissions.”

Amkela Sidange, an environmental education and publicity manager at the state’s Environmental Management Agency, says the textile waste is very minimal in Zimbabwe, contributing an estimated 7% to the total waste generated on an annual basis.

“An analysis of the source of the textile waste indicates it is coming from various sources, mostly coming from the textile industry and nothing on record is linked to secondhand clothes,” she tells IPS, citing a Solid Waste survey conducted in 2023.

Attempts to Ban Secondhand Clothes

Other countries, like Rwanda, successfully banned secondhand clothes in 2016 to protect the local textile industry. Zimbabwe did the same in 2015 but introduced import taxes in 2017 after pressure from the locals. But these measures and arrests by police did not tame the smuggling of secondhand clothes.

Local textile industry players are calling for the government to ban the importation of secondhand clothes and to reduce taxes on local suppliers to protect the local textile industry. In August, Local Government Minister Daniel Garwe instructed local authorities to enforce the ban on the sale of secondhand clothes. But traders have defied the minister’s efforts.

Marambanyika says if she is forced to pay import duty and other taxes, she will go out of business. “I feed my one son and two daughters and pay school fees for them using proceeds from this business. I cannot afford to pay those punitive taxes,” she says. “I will close and relocate to the village.”

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Scientists warn that water risk threatens iconic heritage sites such as the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Sep 3 2025 (IPS)

From Zimbabwe’s ‘The Smoke that thunders,’ Victoria Falls, to the awe-inspiring Pyramids in Egypt and the romantic Taj Mahal in India, these iconic sites are facing a growing threat – water risk.

Several World Heritage sites could be lost forever without urgent action to protect nature, for instance, through the restoration of vital landscapes like wetlands, warns a new report by the World Resources Institute (WRI) following an analysis indicating that droughts and flooding are threatening these sites.

World Heritage sites are places of outstanding universal cultural, historical, scientific, or natural significance, recognized and preserved for future generations through inscription on the World Heritage List of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

About 73 percent of the 1,172 non-marine World Heritage sites are exposed to at least one severe water risk, such as drought, flooding, or river or coastal flooding. About 21 percent of the sites face dual problems of too much and too little water, according to an analysis using WRI’s Aqueduct data.

While the global share of World Heritage Sites exposed to high-to-extremely high levels of water stress is projected to rise from 40 percent to 44 percent by 2050, impacts will be far more severe in regions like the Middle East and North Africa, parts of South Asia, and northern China, the report found.

The report highlighted that water risks were threatening many of the more than 1,200 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The Taj Mahal, for example, faces water scarcity that is increasing pollution and depleting groundwater, both of which are damaging the mausoleum. In 2022, a massive flood closed down all of Yellowstone National Park and cost over USD 20 million in infrastructure repairs to reopen.

River Flooding is affecting the desert city of Chan Chan in Peru. According to WRI’s Aqueduct platform, the UNESCO site and its surrounding region in La Libertad face an extremely high risk of river flooding. By 2050, the population affected by floods each year in an average, non-El Niño year in La Libertad is expected to double from 16,000 to 34,000 due to a combination of human activity and climate change. In an El Niño year, that increase may be much higher.

In addition, the biodiversity-rich Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, the sacred city of Chichén Itzá in Mexico, and Morocco’s Medina of Fez are facing growing water risks that are not just endangering the sites but also the millions of people who depend on them for food, livelihoods, or a connection to their culture or who just enjoy traveling to these destinations, the report said.

Straddling the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, the Victoria Falls was inscribed on the World Heritage site in 1989 for its vital ecosystem and essential source of livelihoods for thousands of people, and a major tourism drawcard.

Despite its reputation for massive cascading water, Mosi-oa-Tunya/Victoria Falls has faced recurring drought over the past decade and at times dried up to barely a trickle. The report stated that the rainforest surrounding Mosi-oa-Tunya/Victoria Falls is home to a rich diversity of wildlife and plants.

According to WRI, Victoria Falls experienced droughts as recently as 2016, 2019, and 2024. Research on rainfall patterns near Mosi-oa-Tunya/Victoria Falls shows that the onset of the rainy season, normally in October, is arriving later in the year. That means in a drought year, it takes longer for relief to arrive, and the longer the drought continues, the more it affects the people, crops, and economy around it.

An Aqueduct analysis found that Victoria Falls ranks as a medium drought risk, below the more than 430 UNESCO World Heritage Sites that rank as a high drought risk. This is primarily because relatively low population density and limited human development immediately surrounding the site reduce overall exposure.

“However, the site faces increasing pressure from tourism-related infrastructure development, and data shows the probability of drought occurrence ranks high—a finding reinforced by the many recent droughts that have plagued the region,” said the report. “Climate change is not only expected to make these droughts more frequent, but recovery is expected to last longer, especially in places that aren’t prepared.

“The time between droughts may not be long enough for the ecosystem to recover, which is particularly concerning for Mosi-oa-Tunya/Victoria Falls.”

Restoring nature, a solution to plugging water risks

The report recommends swift action to restore vital landscapes locally that support healthy, stable water and investment in nature-based solutions like planting trees to restore headwater forests or revitalize wetlands to capture floodwaters and recharge aquifers. Political commitment is key to making this happen.

Besides, countries have been urged to enact national conservation policies to protect vital landscapes from unsustainable development globally, and water’s status as a global common good needs to be elevated while equitable transboundary agreements on sharing water across borders are established.

Zimbabwe hosted the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Ramsar Convention in Victoria Falls under the theme ‘Protecting Wetlands for our Common Future.’ The protection of global water resources is now more urgent.

“You will find the political will to invest in nature exists all over the world,” Samantha Kuzma, Aqueduct Data Lead at the World Resources Institute, told IPS. “Dedicated communities are finding ways to protect and restore vital landscapes like wetlands. The problem is that these efforts are piecemeal. Globally, we are not seeing the political will at the scale needed to achieve real, lasting change.”

The world needs to mobilize up to $7 trillion by 2030 for global water infrastructure to meet water-related SDG commitments and address decades of underinvestment, according to the World Bank. Currently, nearly 91 percent of annual spending on water comes from the public sector, including governments and state-owned enterprises, with less than 2 percent contributed by the private sector, the World Bank says, pointing out the importance of firm commitment to reforming the water sector through progressive policies, institutions, and regulations, and better planning and management of existing capital allocated to the sector.

“We are at the point where inaction is more costly than action,” Kuzma told IPS, emphasizing that the world must do a better job of understanding water’s fundamental role in sustaining economies because its value is everywhere and invisible until it’s at risk.

“Take UNESCO World Heritage Sites, for example. Their ecological and cultural worth is priceless, and in purely pragmatic terms, they’re often the linchpin of local economies,” said Kuzma. “Any closure or damage will send immediate ripple effects through communities. It is safe to say that globally, we are falling short when it comes to protecting nature. But to change course, we must first understand why.”

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Zimbabwe experienced a drought in 2019 and livestock farmers were hit hard. Cattle crossing a dry river in Nkayi District, Nov. 2019. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Aug 20 2025 (IPS)

My family lost six herds of cattle during the devastating El Niño-driven drought that swept Zimbabwe in 2024. The loss was as emotional as it was financial. Guilt gnawed at me.

Drought was nothing new—the past three years had made it painfully clear that I needed to supplement the cows’ feed and ferry water from kilometers away just to keep them alive. But I was fighting a losing battle, desperately trying to sustain emaciated, skeletal animals. Eventually, I had to accept the inevitable: climate change had killed our cattle, and I had been complicit in their suffering.

Have I moved on? Not really. At first, I told myself my distress was an overreaction. After all, countless farmers lost hundreds of livestock and watched their crops wither to nothing. They had suffered more and lost more than I was crying over. Stress, I reasoned, was simply part of the job.

Journalists report on climate change without being personally affected—or so I thought. I was wrong.

Climate change doesn’t just destroy landscapes and livelihoods; it takes a psychological toll on journalists who highlight its horrors.

A groundbreaking study by Dr. Antony Feinstein, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, reveals a hidden crisis: journalists covering the climate crisis are suffering profound emotional and mental health consequences. The research presented during a discussion organized by the Oxford Climate Journalists Network (OCJN) surveyed 268 journalists across 90 countries, spanning Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

The findings are staggering and spoke to me. Forty percent of journalists reported experiencing depression, while one in five exhibited symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), often linked to the “moral injury” of bearing witness to environmental destruction. More than half (55 percent) of the journalists said they lacked access to psychological support, and 16 percent had taken time off work for mental health reasons as a result of covering climate change stories.

The numbers grow even grimmer: nearly half of the journalists surveyed reported moderate to severe anxiety (48%) and depression (42%). Around 22% showed prominent PTSD symptoms. Worse still, 30% had been directly impacted by climate change—losing family, friends, or homes to the crisis. I counted myself in that statistic. I may not have lost a family member, a friend or a home but if cattle count as part of my life, I was affected.

As a journalist reporting on climate change in Zimbabwe—one of the world’s most vulnerable nations—these findings hit close to home. They exposed a fragility I had long dismissed as just part of the job.

Journalists need psychological support. Stigma about mental health runs deep and how do I tell friends and family that I am not okay reporting a story on the impacts of droughts, worse that I have witnessed the loss of six cattle because I could not save them when the drought decimated pastures and dried water supplies? So what? negative events are normal and feeling bad is, I guess, normal too? I have had a lingering question. Surely I can be unsettled by the deaths of cattle and listening to the desperate narratives of farmers about how climate change has upended their lives?

I was depressed, sad, and guilty. I could not do anything to stop cattle dying nor could I pacify farmers in pain. The trauma in covering catastrophe after catastrophe is numbing. Journalists who report on climate change are witnessing a global crisis of our time, and they need support to deliver the news without sacrificing their mental health.

Witnessing tragic events carries a heavy burden for journalists who report on them. I recall covering a story about the impact of drought on livestock farmers in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe’s northern province, where farmers were sharing their staple maize with their cows to keep them alive. Many lost more, some three, five and six cattle between them, but they did give up, though despair was scrawled on their faces. I was shocked and numbed by listening to their sad narrations, but I had to get the story out. I felt hopeless.

Getting a “good” story out of bad experiences means I have to make a tough choice of putting my feelings aside and getting the job done. I have not acknowledged the mental load of witnessing the trauma of covering disasters, yet journalists are supposedly resilient to disturbing news and they soldier on. But no. I have experienced depression at the thought of how people bounce back from personal loss when climate change hits. It is a horror movie that continuously plays in my mind as I go about reporting.

Journalists would benefit from a comprehensive support programme to help them step away from the pressure of being witnesses to catastrophic events. The trauma is beyond comprehension; there is no justification to suffer in silence, especially when mental stress is not talked about in public but endured in private. As a journalist, I have been a victim.

How do I separate myself, my mind and my emotions from the sad stories I cover? I do not have an answer. I am convinced that journalists should tell climate change stories but not be forced to live the reality, although that is almost impossible. Many like me are living the stories they tell with deep scars of mental fatigue and regret.

I believe that newsrooms can offer support in terms of preparing journalists to have the mental agility to report on crises without taking strain from reporting them. Moreover, the impacts of climate change, which is a defining story of the century, affect everyone. Those who say so are at the forefront of agitation, anguish, and hopelessness.

The climate crisis is breaking more than just ecosystems—it’s breaking the journalists who tell its story.

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Fish products on sale in a supermarket in Zimbabwe. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Jul 3 2025 (IPS)

A new report has raised concerns about the exclusion of African fish workers from trade protocols between their governments and developed countries, resulting in impoverished communities relying on fishing.

This comes as the impact of Africa’s trade protocols with blocs such as the European Union and the United States is being examined regarding how they are affecting local small-scale fisheries.

Millions of people rely on fisheries in Africa, where the sector provides jobs and nutrition, but there are increasing complaints among fishermen who lack organized representation and researchers who say fishermen have been pushed out of business by rich foreign companies.

In a recent update titled From promises to perils: Small-scale fisheries overlooked in the EU-Gabon, the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements uses the small African nation as an example of how the continent’s fishermen are getting the short end of the stick despite being at the front line of the lucrative sector.

The coalition looks at how Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements (SFPA) have failed small-scale fishing communities as they “have almost not been involved in these decision-making processes.”

“As Gabon and the European Union (EU) now consider renewing the tuna SFPA, local fisheries remain largely excluded from negotiations and see few benefits from the agreement,” said Beatrice Gorez, coordinator for the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements.

According to the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements, Gabon entered into a trade agreement with the European Union in 2021 and granted European fishing boats the right to harvest tuna within Gabonese waters.

More than 32,000 tons of tuna are hauled from Gabonese waters annually, making the African country the European Union’s second-largest tuna fishing partner.

However, despite these huge numbers, the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements says with the trade protocol set to be reviewed next year, little protection has been put in place for local fishermen.

“The EU reiterated the crucial role of small-scale fisheries for Gabon’s economy and food security. Yet with the current protocol set to expire in 2026, the visits appeared more focused on “identifying future actions to maximize the impact of the protocol,” Gorez said.

The European Union sets aside €2.6 million annually in exchange for access to Gabon’s fisheries, and the funds go towards management of fisheries, combating illegal fishing and the protection of “fragile ecosystems contributing to the good health of stocks and the management of marine protected areas.”

Local fishermen say despite these assurances, local communities have been excluded from the negotiations.

This is confirmed by the Gabonese Federation of Small-Scale Fisheries Actors (FEGAPA), founded in 2023 and now comprising around 20 cooperatives of fishers, fishmongers, and processors. “The fishers were never consulted about the fishing agreement,” said Jean de Dieu Mapaga, President of Gabon’s Federation of Small-Scale Fisheries Actors (FEGAPA).

“It is true that we hear talk of government projects to develop certain fishing centers, but no one has ever explained that these investments are linked to sectoral support funding for small-scale fisheries under the EU-Gabon SFPA,” Mapaga says in the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements report.

Gabon is not the only African country that faces such challenges in the fisheries sector, where international fishing companies have a huge presence and small fishing communities have to compete for catches.

“This pattern is not unique to Gabon. In countries like Liberia, so-called “experimental” fishing has similarly served as a backdoor for accessing high-value resources for which a surplus had not yet been established, Gorez noted.

“Sectoral support from the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements must not remain theoretical; it must contribute concretely and transparently to these national efforts—something that, to date, has not been the case,” said Gorez.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) says African countries face pressing challenges in the blue economy, including declining fish catches and falling income levels for local fishermen due to overfishing.

“Africa’s blue economy holds untapped economic potential,” Claver Gatete, UNECA executive secretary, told the Africa Regional Forum On Sustainable Development held in Uganda in April this year.

“However, marine degradation, weak governance and underinvestment threaten its sustainability,” Gatete added.

These sentiments highlight the concerns raised by small fishing communities who are demanding a place at the negotiating table between their governments and blocs such as the European Union and the US.

“The Central African region has a historically uncompetitive marine and river transport system, with inadequate infrastructure and sectoral strategies,” UNECA says in a March update that seeks to unlock “the vast potential of blue resources.”

The Food and Agriculture Organization says while global fisheries have surged, Africa’s potential remains untapped.

“Targeted policies, technology transfer, capacity building and responsible investment are crucial to boost sustainable aquaculture where it is most needed, especially in Africa,” FAO noted in a 2024 report on the state of global fisheries.

The World Bank estimates that the fisheries and aquaculture sectors contribute USD24 billion to the African economy while providing employment to over 12 million people.

The Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements says for communities to derive a dividend from the sector, consultations must be inclusive, and this will also go a long way towards addressing illegal fishing.

“Exclusion from decision-making has led to a lack of understanding of local realities,” said Gomez.

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A new solar power plant at Africa University in eastern Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
MUTARE, Zimbabwe, Jun 25 2025 (IPS)

When load shedding was introduced over the past two years, Jose Tenete Domingos Lumboa had to deal with learning disruptions worsened by the backup generators in the eastern part of Zimbabwe.

Apart from the noise and air pollution from the diesel-powered generators, the backup system did not run the whole night.

“It was disruptive,” says the 26-year-old from Angola, who is studying Education at Africa University, a United Methodist Church-related institution.

“You have an assignment due and you are still researching online and if the electricity goes off, you cannot meet the deadline.”

Lumboa is lucky not to have missed the deadline for any of his assignments, but most of his fellow students have been missing deadlines due to rolling power cuts.

Students Jose Tenete Domingos Lumboa and Maria Kwikiriza at Africa University in eastern Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

A new solar mini-grid at AU, just outside Zimbabwe’s third-largest city of Mutare, is changing the lives of students like Lumboa.

The 250 kilowatt solar power plant, officially commissioned on 6 June, has 590 solar panels, a 250 kilovolt inverter system and a 600 kilowatt-hour battery bank.

The lithium batteries have a lifespan of 25 years.

The system is providing uninterrupted power to the AU’s main campus, including student hostels and laboratories.

“Annually, we had to spend a minimum of USD 216,000. That was our energy bill. Our maximum will be around USD 240,000. So, we will save around USD 240,000 per year,” says Professor Talon Garikayi, a deputy Vice Chancellor at AU, an engineer overseeing the solar power project.

In 2024, the southern African nation was hit by a punishing drought fueled by El Niño, a climate phenomenon that can worsen dry spells or storms, extreme weather events increasingly linked to climate change.

This led to a sharp drop in water levels in Lake Kariba, home to the country’s main hydropower plant, which is shared with Zambia.

The authorities were forced to roll out load shedding schedules lasting for more than 18 hours.

Lake Kariba was generating less than 20 percent of its installed capacity of 1050 megawatts (MW) at the time.

Jose Tenete Domingos Lumboa, a student at Africa University working on his laptop. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

In April 2024, the government declared the drought a national disaster—the worst in 40 years—which left more than half the population food insecure.

Institutions like AU had to turn to diesel-powered generators, which are expensive to run.

And students like Lumboa had to bear the brunt of load shedding at AU.

Reverend Alfiado Zunguza, AU Board of Directors chairperson, says this makes education expensive.

“We felt like it was critical to invest in this solar power plant to ensure the university continues to be reliable in its operations and its systems that are critical in advancing the knowledge of the continent,” he says.

“The university was spending USD 240,000 a year for electricity, making education expensive. So we want to reduce the cost of education at AU, making it more affordable to as many people as possible.”

He says in the long run, AU is saving more, and the funds can be channeled towards infrastructure development, research labs, and capacity building.

The Zimbabwe government, through its National Energy Policy, is planning to generate 2,100 MW by 2030 from renewable energy and biofuels like ethanol.

Maria Kwikiriza, who is from Uganda and is studying law, says that by investing in renewable energy, the institution is contributing to a clean environment.

Lithium batteries at the new solar power plant at Africa University in eastern Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

“The campus is now quiet. The oil from the generator was affecting my breathing. We now have access to WiFi all night, which is essential for our studying,” says the 25-year-old who has asthma.

Zimbabwe, a country of 15.1 million people, has 62 percent electricity access and relies heavily on coal and hydropower for its energy needs.

The AU is improving electricity access to the community through its new solar power plant.

Reverend Peter Mageto, AU vice chancellor, says his institution is releasing electricity, which will benefit surrounding communities.

“So, we are glad that we are venturing into this so that the electricity supply authorities can provide electricity to the underserved communities,” he says, adding that this project is part of the AU’s strategic plan running from 2023 to 2027.

Mageto, who is from Kenya, says he brought with him lessons learned from Kenya, which is one of the nations doing well in renewable energy in Africa.

Dr. James Salley, chief executive officer of Africa University, Tennessee, says the solar mini-grid was funded by AU Tennessee Corporation, which founded AU Zimbabwe more than 30 years ago.

“No donor provided funding for this project and that is the uniqueness of it. That is what I am talking about—sustainability,” says Salley, who is also the associate vice chancellor for institutional advancement at AU.

Garikayi says AU is working to generate 1.4 MW by October, enough to cover the university’s farm and its residential areas.

This solar power plant will become the biggest in Manicaland Province after a 200 kW solar mini-grid in Hakwata in Chipinge, a 140 kW solar power plant at Victoria Chitepo Provincial Hospital and a 150 kW solar power plant at Mutambara Mission Hospital, funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

He says if he has excess electricity, it will be extended to nearby Old Mutare, which has a school, an orphanage, and a hospital.

“We will be able to say there are 1,200 business units within Manicaland. Everyone within the region can now use the energy we would have been allocated,” Garikayi says, adding that the AU will reduce the load from the national grid.

Lumbo is planning to replicate this solar power plant in his country, Angola.

“I was talking to my fellow countrymen about taking this technology back home. It improves students’ welfare and boosts our confidence,” he says.

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Worried residents look at a flooded pool, a result of quarry mining near Pumula North in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS.

By Jeffrey Moyo
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Feb 26 2025 (IPS)

On Christmas Day in 2022, 27-year-old Thabani Dlodlo’s eight-year-old son drowned in a flooded pit dug up by quarry miners in the vicinity of Pumula North, a high-density suburb in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city.

As if that was not enough, just a week after New Year’s Day the following year, Dlodlo’s neighbor, 36-year-old Sethule Hlengiwe, also lost her six-year-old daughter after she drowned in another pit flooded with rainwater near her home in Bulawayo.

When tragedy struck, the six-year-old Thenjiwe had sneaked out to play with her agemates in the vicinity of her home.

Thenjiwe’s mother claimed all the illegal quarry miners took to their heels when her daughter drowned.

“Nobody wanted to be held responsible when my daughter drowned. All the quarry miners who were nearby then just bolted,” Hlengiwe told IPS.

Quarry miners have descended on Bulawayo’s open spaces and have dug huge pits, defacing the urban terrain of the once-thriving industrial city.

Often fronting for Chinese quarry owners, the quarry miners working in the vicinity of high-density suburbs often use explosives, which result in cracks on nearby homes—and some have even collapsed.

One such resident whose home was destroyed due to quarry mining is 64-year-old Londiwe Mabuza, once based in the suburb of Pumula North.

“I now live with my relatives, together with my family, after our home collapsed as a result of violent vibrations as quarry miners used explosives mining near my house,” Mabuza told IPS.

Yet while many, like Mabuza, bemoan the collapse of their dwellings, others are bragging about their rich pickings from quarry mining.

“A single wheelbarrow of quarry gives me a straight two dollars after I sell it to the Chinese quarry miners and on a good day, I make sure I sell at least 10 to 15 wheelbarrows laden with quarry,” 29-year-old Melusi Dhlela, also a Pumula South resident.

Environmental activists claim that while individuals such as Dhlela profit from quarry mining, the environment has suffered as a result.

“There are many issues that quarry mining activities in the vicinity of cities cause. The challenge is that the impacts are all negative. This includes biodiversity loss, human health problems such as respiratory diseases, destruction of infrastructure like roads and houses, water pollution, land degradation and noise pollution,” says Mashall Mutambu, an environmentalist and land expert with a master’s in Land Resources Assessment for Development Planning from the Midlands State University in Zimbabwe.

Another quarry miner, 22-year-old Melusi Ngwenya, a resident of Bulawayo’s Magwegwe West high-density suburb, has moved from a life of rags to riches.

“I used to beg for food and money at street corners in the city, but now as a quarry miner, life has changed for me and now I can afford to pay my own rent and buy food and clothing,” he (Ngwenya) told IPS.

Bulawayo’s townships also have to contend with illegal gold miners who have invaded the city, digging up for gold haphazardly and, like quarry miners, creating gullies and huge pits all over the city.

This is a serious safety issue, especially in the rainy season, where they are flooded and pose a danger to children who fall in and often drown. The pits have become known as the pools of death.

But the miners don’t care about the people or the environment damaged by blasting and illegal mining.

“What we want is money, money and nothing more so that we can live better,” said 39-year-old Dumisani Dlamini, a known quarry miner domiciled in the city’s Nkulumane high-density suburb.

The blasting became a common occurrence after a Chinese firm, Haulin Investments (Pvt) Limited, set up a quarry mine in 2021. The 10-year mining contract was given to the company by the Bulawayo City Council.

But while some profit, many Bulawayo residents, like 35-year-old Senzeni Nhlathi, have had to make do with growing noise pollution from quarry sites.

“We have become used to hearing the blasting of rocks and even hills as quarry miners chase the dollar linked to quarry mining, which means the more the blasting of rocks here, the more the noise,” Nhlathi told IPS. “So, we suffer as others make money.”

Bulawayo residents like 27-year-old Japhet Ndiweni claimed residents were not consulted when Haulin started the venture.

“Hualin for instance, has not bothered to ask us about our views when they moved into our residential territories,” Ndiweni told IPS.

Instead of condemning the mining operations, the city fathers have come out vehemently defending the location of quarry mines.

However, not all quarry miners in this area are bad actors.

Anderson Mwembe (43), who is the Treasurer of the Cowdray Park Quarry Crushers Association, said they have approached the Bulawayo City Council to regularize their operations.

With Mwembe and his association on board, children are safe in those areas mined by them.

“We make USD 2 per wheelbarrow of quarry and drowning of children in pits dug up by quarry miners has been avoided because we make sure to chase away all children who want to play in the area,” he (Mwembe) told IPS.

Others have turned to defending their land against quarry miners, like 42-year-old Bekithemba Bhebhe, resident in Bulawayo, who has switched to rearing dogs to fend off the daring quarry poachers.

Bhebhe owns five vicious dogs, which have kept quarry poachers at bay more effectively than the fence that Bulawayo City Council has erected at some points frequented by illegal quarry miners.

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Chihwa Chadambuka belongs to the LGBTQ community, who have turned to climate-smart agriculture to change perceptions of the group. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
MUTARE, Zimbabwe, Feb 20 2025 (IPS)

Takudzwa Saruwaka is hoeing weeds in a cowpea field in eastern Zimbabwe one morning in February, trying to beat torrential rains threatening from the gray clouds above.

The 27-year-old has braved the rainy weather to work on this drought-resistant crop grown in the backyard of office premises, converted to a farming field at Matondo Growth Point, a peri-urban area about 25 kilometers outside Zimbabwe’s third largest city of Mutare.

“Last year we had a drought that took a toll on our crops. So, this year we decided to grow cowpeas,” says Saruwaka, a member of Mothers Haven Trust, a community organization supporting Lesbians, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer women (LBTQI) in rural areas outside Mutare.

“It is short-term, meaning it matures in only two months.”

Saruwaka is one of the LBTQ members who turned to smart agriculture to build climate resilience in 2022.

Having been accused of being ‘involved in acts’ that cause droughts by the community, which is a misconception, these people are demonstrating that climate disasters like droughts and floods are caused by climate change and that climate-smart agriculture helps build resilience.

Last year, Zimbabwe was hit by a drought attributed to El Niño, a climate phenomenon that can exacerbate drought or storms—weather conditions made more likely by climate change.

More than half of the southern African nation’s population of 15.1 million was left food insecure.

Zambia, Lesotho, Malawi and Namibia are struggling with food shortages.

Takudzwa Saruwaka hoes weeds in a field at Matondo Growth Point, outside Mutare. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

Climate-Smart Farming Improving Family Relations

Chihwa Chadambuka, a founder of Mothers Haven Trust, says they were experiencing verbal threats and abuse as people were curious to know what happens behind their locked gates.

“We kept our premises locked for personal security reasons. They became so curious,” says Chadambuka, a transgender man, who established the organization in Zimbabwe’s second-largest city of Bulawayo in 2015 and moved to Mutare in 2019.

“We had to re-strategize. They saw us as beggars. We concluded we needed to venture into agriculture. We engaged an agronomist who helped us grow vegetables, onions, tomatoes and sweet potatoes.”

They started clearing the land in the backyard of their office premises.

Produce from their first harvest was donated to the local community and some were taken home to improve relations.

“This created a good relationship with the community. It sparked some conversations between us and them,” says Chadambuka, adding that they also sell some farm produce to the local community while the farmers take some to their families.

Saruwaka says by providing food to their families, it reduces rifts.

“Relationships between our members and their families are improving. If you tell them you want to be a she while they see you as a he, they will think you are running away from responsibilities,” they say.

“But if you are working, they take you seriously. Behind our sexuality, we also work hard building climate resilience.”

There are 64 countries where homosexuality is criminalized, and nearly half of these are in Africa, according to statistics from the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, a worldwide federation of organizations campaigning for LGBTQI rights.

In Africa, most countries, like Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Kenya, inherited archaic and draconian laws that criminalize homosexuality from the white colonialists who introduced them many years ago.

Takudzwa Saruwaka removing weeds from a plot with climate-resilient cowpeas at Matondo Growth Point, outside Mutare. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

Zimbabwe’s 2013 Constitution prohibits same-sex marriage but is silent on gay relations, while other laws that criminalize homosexuality in the country carry stiff penalties of up to three years in jail for those involved.

The southern African nation is largely dominated by Christians, who account for more than 80 percent of the population.

In Zimbabwe, discrimination is worse for LGBTQI members in rural areas because of patriarchy, religion and societal beliefs.

Lack of access to opportunities due to discrimination increases the LGBTQI community’s vulnerability to climate change.

LGBTQI People ‘More at Risk’ From Climate Change

“LGBTQI people are at risk from climate change due to the intersection of social, economic, and legal factors that contribute to their marginalization and vulnerability in crisis environments,” says Matuba Mahlatjie, a communications and media relations manager at Outright International, an organization that works to strengthen the capacity of the LGBTQI movement around the world.

He says the marginalization of LGBTQI people is rooted in legal frameworks and normative assumptions that dictate which sexual orientations, gender identities, or sex characteristics are desirable and permissible, leading to experiences of bias, violence, and exclusion.

Mahlatjie says the LGBTQI community can be protected from climate shocks by proactively opening space for them and formally bringing LGBTQI organizations into the humanitarian ecosystem through mechanisms such as task forces or working groups.

Mothers Haven Trust organizes fairs where farmers meet and exchange farming techniques and exhibit different varieties of crops, including drought-resistant.

As water sources dry up every year, they have also set up a greenhouse to reduce their reliance on rain-fed agriculture.

Back home, other members are implementing techniques learned at the farm, contributing to household food security.

Chadambuka says plans are underway this year to directly work with the community to raise awareness about climate change.

“We want to engage schools, educating the young about climate change,” he says.

Saruwaka is working to become a full-time farmer and contribute to Zimbabwe’s food security.

“If I get a large piece of land and focus on farming. But I will drill a borehole because rain-fed agriculture is unsustainable due to climate change,” they say.

“I want to diversify into poultry and animal husbandry.”

Note: This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.

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A congested street in Bulawayo where public transporters pick up passengers at an undesignated point. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Dec 18 2024 (IPS)

As the population in African cities grows, governments are struggling to provide sustainable public transport solutions, conditions that have led to gridlock in major business districts.

Projections show rapid growth of urban populations across the continent, and town planners are hard-pressed for time on how new spaces and infrastructure will be created for efficient public transport.

A growing number of cities are expected to hit a population of more than 10 million people by 2035, but social services are failing to match the overload on existing infrastructure, with public transport being one of the major sticking points.

In countries such as Zimbabwe, where government-owned transport utilities have been overtaken by thousands of illegal taxi operators, local authorities are fighting an uphill battle to bring order out of the urban chaos.

In the country’s two major cities, Harare and Bulawayo, municipalities have put in place measures to decongest the public transport sector, but these have fallen flat as both registered and unregistered operators have routinely ignored the decrees to work from designated points.

For example, in 2015, the city of Bulawayo awarded a multimillion-dollar contract for the construction of what was hoped to be a futuristic public transport terminus, but operators have shunned it, claiming its positioning in the central business district is bad for business.

While the Egodini Mall Taxi Rank and Informal Traders Market was also expected to provide trading space for vendors in anticipation of business from travelers, it is marked by empty vending bays, with traders preferring crowded CBD sidewalks instead.

City mayor David Coltart has conceded that the project risks becoming a white elephant, and construction of the next phase of the project has been halted to deal with these challenges, highlighting the challenge growing cities face in their efforts to modernise amenities.

Zimbabwe’s public transport headaches come against the backdrop of the Second World Sustainable Transport Day this November, where policymakers and agencies rethink urban mobility.

Other pertinent issues include ways of incorporating public transport into the broader improvement of “safety and security, reducing pollution and CO2 emissions while increasing the attractiveness of urban environments,” according to a United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) briefing during the 2023 World Sustainable Transport Day.

According to UN Habitat, the day was declared by the UN General Assembly “in recognition of the important role of safe, affordable, accessible, and sustainable transport systems for all in supporting sustainable economic growth, improving the social welfare of people, and enhancing international cooperation and trade among countries.”

However, to achieve this, UNECA says African governments must put in place “remedial measures” that will ensure the continent’s transportation systems are more sustainable and environmentally friendly.

“African governments must prioritize inclusive urban planning,” said Atkeyelsh Persson, chief of the Urbanization and Development Section at the Economic Commission for Africa.

“Key areas of focus should include upgrading infrastructure such as roads and utilities,” Persson told IPS.

This comes as Zimbabwe and other regional countries seem to be going backwards in realising UNECA’s goals as they are struggling to cope with rapid urbanisation and provide sustainable urban transport solutions for city dwellers.

During last year’s inaugural World Sustainable Transport Day, UNECA said the continent was in urgent need of developing sustainable and resilient public transport infrastructure if Africa is to “optimise the development of interconnected highways, railways, waterways, and airways.”

The agency noted that Africa’s rapid urbanisation was also a call to escalate sustainable urban transport solutions, but with government cuts in public spending and also the drying up of private investors in the sector, public transportation has only deteriorated.

“Despite this growth in urban populations, the rate of growth in housing, infrastructure, and basic amenities has not kept pace with this urban growth,” said Nyovani Madise, a demographics professor and President of the Union for African Population Studies.

“This has resulted in mushrooming of urban informal settlements, waste and pollution, congestion on the roads and overcrowding,” Madise told IPS.

While UNECA has called for the optimisation of interconnected transportation, Zimbabwe’s once thriving railways has become virtually nonexistent, with the National Railways suspending its passenger train service citing operational challenges.

As part of desperate efforts to deal with the shrinking space for public transport, the Bulawayo municipality is planning to take over parking space at the National Railways of Zimbabwe train station for use as a long-distance bus terminus.

The unusual move was triggered by an increasing number of long-distance buses in Bulawayo who have joined smaller pirate taxis picking up passengers in undesignated points.

These developments have further highlighted the difficulties some African countries face in balancing urban population growth and public transport needs, which could be a missed opportunity towards UNECA’s proposed “socially inclusive, environmentally sustainable, and well-governed continent.”

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Water woes hit Zimbabwean cities as the country battles to overcome the impact of drought attributed to the El Niño climate pattern. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Dec 11 2024 (IPS)

At a borehole not far from Mpopoma High School in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city, 48-year-old Sakhile Mulawuzi balances a white 25-liter bucket of water on her head as she holds another 10-liter blue bucket filled with water. She trudges these back home along a narrow pathway leading to her house in Mpopoma, one of the high-density areas here.

Similarly, in Masvingo, Zimbabwe’s oldest town, 30-year-old Ruramai Chinoda stands at her neighbor’s house in Rujeko high-density suburb, where she fetches water from a tap because her neighbor has a borehole and shares the precious liquid with the community.

Nearly 300 kilometers north of Masvingo, 43-year-old Nevias Chaurura, a pushcart operator in Mabvuku high-density suburb in the Zimbabwean capital Harare, struggles with a load of eight 20-liter buckets. He delivers them from door-to-door for a minimal fee as many city dwellers battle to find water.

These ongoing water shortages are blamed on a lack of planning and the ongoing El Niño drought. If the residents were hoping for a change in weather conditions, a report released today (Wednesday, December 11, 2024) by the World Meteorological Organization suggests that while the cooling La Niña climate pattern may develop in the next three months, it is expected to be relatively weak and short-lived.

Latest forecasts from WMO Global Producing Centres of Long-Range Forecasts indicate a 55 percent likelihood of a transition from the current neutral conditions (neither El Niño nor La Niña) to La Nina conditions during December 2024 to February 2025, the WMO explains.

Infographic credit: WMO

The return of the ENSO-neutral conditions is then favored during February-April 2025, with about a 55 percent chance.

La Niña refers to the large-scale cooling of the ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, coupled with changes in the tropical atmospheric circulation, such as winds, pressure and rainfall. Generally, La Niña produces the opposite large-scale climate impacts to El Niño, especially in tropical regions.

“However, naturally occurring climate events such as La Nina and El Nino events are taking place in the broader context of human-induced climate change, which is increasing global temperatures, exacerbating extreme weather and climate, and impacting seasonal rainfall and temperature patterns,” the WMO warns.

WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said 2024, which started out with El Niño, is on track to be the hottest year on record.

“Even if a La Niña event does emerge, its short-term cooling impact will be insufficient to counterbalance the warming effect of record heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” said Saulo. “Even in the absence of El Niño or La Niña conditions since May, we have witnessed an extraordinary series of extreme weather events, including record-breaking rainfall and flooding, which have unfortunately become the new norm in our changing climate.”

Zimbabwe is one of six countries that declared a state of emergency over the El Niño-induced drought, which resulted in the lowest mid-season rainfall in 40 years. The weather phenomenon also resulted in intense rain in other regions.

“These severe weather shocks have led to the displacement of thousands of people, disease outbreaks, food shortages, water scarcity and significant impacts on agriculture,” according to the organization OCHA.

Zimbabwean residents blame the water shortages on both the weather and bad planning.

Mulawuzi said for nearly two decades, she has lived with the crisis in the country’s second-largest city and as residents, they have only learnt to live with the challenge and ignore the promises from politicians to end the city’s perennial water crisis over the years.

Each election time, politicians from the governing Zimbabwe Africa National Union Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) have pledged to end Bulawayo’s water woes by working on the Zambezi water pipeline project meant to end the city’s water challenges.

However, since the country’s colonial government laid out the plan more than a century ago, the project has not been implemented.

A 450-kilometer pipeline to bring water from the Zambezi River to Bulawayo was first proposed in 1912 by this country’s colonial government.

Then, like now, the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project (MZWP) aimed to address the region’s chronic water shortages and to promote socio-economic growth.

Now, water-starved residents of Bulawayo, like Mulawuzi, are forced to endure the accelerated water rationing that has hit the city, lasting at times for nearly a week.

“I have no choice for as long as there is no running water on our taps but to go around some boreholes here in search of the water for my family,” Mulawuzi, a mother of four, told IPS.

When Bulawayo residents, like Mulawuzi, are lucky to have access to water, people in high-density suburbs are now limited to 350 litres of water per day, reduced from 450 liters.

In Bulawayo’s low-density areas, the affluent residents are restricted to 550 liters, down from 650 litres of water when supplied by the council.

In Harare, life has become a gamble for many urbanites like Chaurura, who has now turned the drought into a money-making venture.

“People have no water in their houses and I made a plan to fetch it from boreholes and wells far from the residents and sell it to them. I get a dollar for each 40 liters of water I sell and I make sure I get busy throughout the day,” Chaurura told IPS.

The El Niño drought has resulted in major lakes and dams supplying water in urban areas running low across Zimbabwe, triggering an acute water crisis in towns and cities.

According to the Zimbabwe National Water Authority, most of the dams supplying water to Bulawayo are dangerously low—the Inyakuni is at 9 percent, the Insiza at 36.5 percent, the Lower Ncema at 5.9 percent and the Upper Ncema at 1.7 percent.

The city is currently under a 120-hour water shedding program due to the reduced inflows from the 2023/24 rainy season.

In Harare, where many like Chaurura now thrive making money from the crisis, urban residents commonly move around carrying buckets in search of water. They form long and winding queues at the few water points erected by Good Samaritans.

Some, like 37-year-old Jimson Beta working in the Central Business District, where he fixes mobile phones, now carry empty five-liter containers to work.

“After work, I always fetch water to carry with me back home because there is often no running water where I live with my family. It only comes once a week. We have become used to this problem, which is not normal at all,” Beta told IPS.

For people like Beta, the water situation in the capital Harare has not improved either, even as authorities in government have drilled boreholes to address the crisis.

Just last year, in October, the Zimbabwean government appointed a 19-member technical committee to manage the City of Harare’s water affairs as part of efforts to improve the availability of the precious liquid across the city.

Despite that move, water deficits have continued to pound Harare rather mercilessly and many, like Beta, have had to bear the pain of finding the precious liquid almost every day on their own.

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Some farmers buy seed at discounted prices during a seed fair in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
MAFAURE, Zimbabwe, Dec 11 2024 (IPS)

When Susan Chinyengetere started to focus on farming in her home village in south-eastern Zimbabwe, she wondered if she could earn a living and raise her children.

With climate catastrophes ravaging the country, her hesitation on rain-fed agriculture worsened. But two years later, the 32-year-old mother of two from Mafaure village in Masvingo, about 295 km from the capital Harare, is now a champion in farming.

Armed with early maturity and drought-resistant crop varieties like orange maize, cowpeas and lab-lab for livestock feed, Chinyengetere has a good harvest despite prolonged droughts across Zimbabwe.

“There was a drought last farming season, but I managed to get enough food to feed my family until next season,” she says. “I even sold leftovers to the local market.”

Brutal Drought Ravaging Crops

Zimbabwe, a landlocked country, relies on rain-fed agriculture. But over the years, rain patterns have been erratic, threatening the entire agriculture sector. The Southern African nation has been hit by one climate disaster after another. If there are no violent cyclones, severe floods or devastating droughts are ravaging the country.

From 2023 to 2024, a brutal El Niño drought—the strongest on record—plummeted the entire country.

Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia were also not spared by the same El Niño drought. There was crop failure in more than 80 percent of the country, according to the government.

Some farmers have been left with little or no food, and sources of livelihood in rural areas have been affected. Zimbabwe may be reaching a tipping point for rain-fed agriculture.

Farmers in Masvingo are growing orange maize, which has high vitamins amid climate change. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

But woman farmers like Chinyengetere have their little secret as to how they are becoming resilient and adapting to the effects of climate change. She is part of Ukama Ustawi, an Initiative on Diversification in East and Southern Africa by CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future dedicated to transforming food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis. The farmers are subdivided into small groups of at most 15.

“I use zero tillage when I plant orange maize on my land spanning 40 m by 90 m. The idea is not to disturb the soil,” says Chinyengetere. “I was used to white maize. When I joined this project, I planted yellow maize for the first time.”

Zero tillage is an agricultural technique where farmers sow seeds directly into the soil without disturbing it. It is part of conservation agriculture that is becoming popular in Zimbabwe after it was upscaled across the country by the government. Chinyengetere prefers the technique because it has less labour than tillage farming.

“Even when I am alone and my children are at school, I can still sow the whole field,” she says.

In Masvingo, men are also providing solutions to climate change through the Ukama Ustawi initiative, though women are the majority.

Anton Mutasa from Zindere village in Masvingo says he has been able to feed his family because of climate-smart agriculture. “I grow orange maize, cowpeas, and lab-lab. To conserve water, prevent soil erosion and allow water to infiltrate, I spread some mulch around the plants,” says the 55-year-old father of six.

“This is vital, particularly during the dry season. I also rotate the crops to improve soil fertility. For instance, if I grew cowpeas on this part of land last season, this season I will make sure I grow oranges.”

Climate change affects women differently

Both men and women are affected by climate change. But for women, it hits harder because of the preexisting inequalities. They suffer because of the entrenched societal roles and limited access to resources.

Women are primarily responsible for cooking for the family and fetching water, particularly in rural areas. This places them on the frontlines of climate change because food and water become scarce during extreme weather events like drought.

Another farmer, Tendai Marange, from Machengere village in Masvingo, says less labour farming techniques allow women to continue their role as women. “I am expected to do house chores, but at the same time I want to go to the farm. This technique saves me time,” says the 47-year-old mother of three.

Farmers networking during a seed fair in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

Chinyengetere says she is inspiring other women. “I feel empowered. I am occupied. The fact that I am bringing income and food for the family brings happiness to my marriage,” she says. “I even doubted myself. I thought, as a woman, I am a child-bearing machine.”

Once Chinyengetere and Marange’s projects are successful, they will share what they learned with others in Zimbabwe and beyond the borders.

“I am contributing solutions to climate change. Women are often at the receiving end of climate change. But my case is different; I am leading from the front,” says Chinyengetere.

Over 1 million farmers have been reached with different agriculture initiatives. At least 140,000 use the technologies that were promoted under Ukama Ustawi in Ethiopia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia, according to Christian Thierfelder, a principal cropping systems agronomist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), one of the research centres working with CGIAR.

About 60 percent of those were women. More than 45 percent were youth.

Thierfelder says as part of Ukama Ustawi in Zimbabwe, they work in 30 communities, where they have trials on drought-resistant crops.

He says Ukama Ustawi’s primary aim is to shift farmers’ behavior and perceptions, moving away from conventional maize-only farming systems towards diversified maize-based systems under conservation agriculture principles. “This involves promoting practices like crop rotation, intercropping, and sustainable soil management, all of which are essential for improving resilience to climate variability and boosting long-term productivity,” Thierfelder says.

Many farmers across the country lost their livestock due to lack of feed after grazing lands were depleted and outbreaks of diseases precipitated by the El Niño drought. Ukama Ustawi is working to change this by fostering livestock feeding systems with green manure cover crops and forage grasses.

“I lost my cattle in the previous droughts before joining Ukama Ustawi. I had no feed and diseases worsened the situation. I am now using lab-lab to make feed for my goats,” says Marange.

Networking

Ukama is a Shona word that translates to relationship. Marange says the groups provide networking opportunities. “We are a family. We share tips and ideas on conservation farming,” she says.

Since 2020, CIMMYT has been organizing seed and mechanization fairs where farmers access high-quality seeds and equipment they would otherwise struggle to access. “It is cheap to buy seeds at the fairs. It is usually cheap. We get discounts,” says Marange.

Thierfelder says Ukama Ustawi recognizes the importance of integrating a variety of crops, such as legumes, cowpeas, groundnuts, and small grains, into maize-dominated systems to achieve both ecological and economic sustainability.

“Seed fairs play a pivotal role in advancing this mission by providing farmers access to a diverse range of seeds, including drought-tolerant maize and other complementary crops that support diversification,” he says.

Thierfelder says plans are underway to upscale the Ukama Ustawi initiative to reach approximately more than 20 million farmers around the world with their technologies. “This is meant to be scaled up because those have reached a scaling readiness level and that is very high,” he says.

For Chinyengetere, the dream is to see more women leading the battle against climate change. “It is tough to convince young women to do farming under this extreme weather. Climate change is pushing them away into other dangerous activities like illegal mining,” she says.

Note: This story was produced with support from CGIAR and MESHA.

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Christian Thierfelder, Principal Scientist at CIMMYT, poses in a field that is being tested for conservation agriculture at Henderson Research Station, Harare, Zimbabwe. Credit, Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Dec 5 2024 (IPS)

On the dusty plains of Shamva District in Zimbabwe, Wilfred Mudavanhu’s maize field defies drought.>

With the El Niño-induced drought gripping several countries in Southern Africa, Mudavanhu’s maize crop is flourishing, thanks to an innovative farming method that helps keep moisture in the soil and promotes soil health.

Once harvesting just 1.5 tonnes of maize (30-50 kg bags) each season, Mudavanhu’s harvest jumped to 2.5 tonnes of maize (50 bags) in the 2023/2024 cropping season.

Mudavanhu is one of many farmers in Zimbabwe embracing conservation agriculture, a method that prioritizes minimal soil disturbance, crop rotation, and soil moisture conservation. The practice is complemented by other methods such as timely control of weeds, mulching, and farming on a small plot to gain high yields.

Researchers say the conservation agriculture method is proving a lifeline for farmers grappling with climate change.

For more than 20 years, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has promoted research on conservation agriculture in Southern Africa with the aim of getting farmers to increase their crop yields.

Under conventional farming, smallholder maize yields have often been below 1 tonne per hectare in Zimbabwe, according to researchers. Adopting CA practices has led to yield increases of up to 90 percent. While in Malawi farmers have experienced maize yields increased by up to 400 percent, crops are integrated with nitrogen-fixing trees such as Faidherbia albida. In Zambia, maize yields under conventional farming have been at 1.9 tonnes per hectare, and these have increased to 4.7 tonnes per hectare where farmers have used conservation agriculture practices.

But beyond high yields, conservation agriculture saves moisture and enhances soil health, offering farmers a long-term solution to the growing problem of soil degradation, a looming threat in the face of climate change, researchers said.

“As the climate crisis deepens, CA has become essential for Southern African farmers, offering a resilient, climate-smart approach to boost productivity and withstand climate change impacts, reinforcing sustainable food security,” Christian Thierfelder, a principal scientist at CIMMYT, told IPS, explaining that CA could be a game changer for the rainfed cropping system in the region.

About 3 million farmers in Southern Africa are practicing CA, Thierfelder said, adding: “The more climate change hits as seen in recent droughts, the more the farmers will adopt CA because the traditional way of doing agriculture will not always work anymore.”

The use of machines is attracting smallholder farmers to adopt conservation agriculture. CIMMYT has researched using machines suitable for smallholder CA systems.

The machines have been found to increase intercropping methods farmers use while addressing the challenges of high labour demands associated with conservation agriculture.

Traditionally, farmers spend hours digging planting basins, a time-consuming and labor-intensive process. The basin digger has mechanized the land preparation stage, reducing the number of people needed to dig the basins.

Thierfelder said CIMMYT has partnered with registered service providers in Zimbabwe and Zambia, who offer mechanization services that improve farming efficiency and reduce labour demands. One such innovation, the basin digger—a cost-effective, low-energy machine—reduces labour by up to 90 percent.

Cosmas Chari, a farmer and service provider in Shamva, used to spend a day digging basins for planting, but now he takes an hour using the basin digger.

Mudavanhu became a mechanization service provider after integrating CA with mechanization. As a service provider, Mudavanhu hires out a two-wheeled tractor, a sheller, and a ripper to other farmers practicing CA.

Similarly, another farmer, Advance Kandimiri, is also a service provider practicing CA.

“I started being a mechanization service provider in 2022 and adopted CA using mechanization,” said Kandimiri, who bought a tractor, a sheller, and a two-row planter.

“Conservation agriculture is more profitable than conventional farming that I was doing before I learned about CA,” said Kandimiri.

Data from CIMMYT’s research indicates that farmers adopting CA practices can earn extra income of approximately USD 368 per hectare as a result of getting higher yields and reduced input costs.

Conservation Agriculture in the Region

Farmers across Southern Africa have found success after adopting CA practices with remarkable results.

In 2011, during a visit to Monze in Zambia’s Southern Province, Gertrude Banda observed the significant benefits of CA firsthand. Farmers practicing CA for over seven years demonstrated how planting crops without tillage using an animal traction ripper led to reduced labour in land preparation and improved crop yields.

Banda says she was motivated by this experience to adopt CA on her own 9-hectare farm, where she grows cowpeas, groundnuts, and soybeans. She practices crop rotation, alternating maize with various legumes to enhance soil fertility and improve crop yields. Additionally, she uses groundnut and cowpea residues for livestock feed. She earned about USD 5,000 from selling her soya crop.

“Today, my entire farm follows CA principles,” Banda said. “All my crops are planted in rip lines, and I rotate maize with various legumes to maintain soil health.”

Over 65,000 farmers in Malawi and 50,000 in Zambia have adopted CA, according to CIMMYT, whose research shows that farmer education, training, and technical guidance are vital for farmers to make the shift.

However, widespread adoption of conservation agriculture has remained low despite its acknowledged advantages. Smallholder farmers face challenges in accessing inputs and equipment, said Hambulo Ngoma, an agricultural economist at CIMMYT.

Besides, farmers have limited knowledge of effective weed control and struggle with short-term yield uncertainties, which can discourage consistent practice, Ngoma said.

“While CA has proven its worth, adoption rates are still relatively low across Southern Africa,” Ngoma said, adding, “Many farmers lack the resources to invest in the tools and training required for effective implementation.”

Fruitful Partnerships to Promote Conservation Agriculture

Blessing Mhlanga, a cropping systems agronomist with CIMMYT’s Sustainable Agrifood Systems program, said the success of CA goes beyond technology and techniques but is hinged on education and including CA principles in national policies. In Zambia, for instance, CIMMYT, in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), helped design a mechanization strategy that has paved the way for mechanized CA to be incorporated into government-led agricultural programs.

“Technologies like intensification with Gliricidia, a fast-growing nitrogen fixing tree, strip cropping, and permanently raised beds are now part of Zambia’s national agriculture agenda,” explained Mhlanga, who noted that the adoption of CA by smallholder farmers can be transformative, particularly in regions reliant on rainfed cropping.

Mhlanga said with more than 250 million hectares of land currently under CA globally and adoption rates of the CA practices increasing by 10 million hectares annually, the future of CA is promising. However, much work remains to be done in providing smallholder farmers like Mudavanhu with the right tools and knowledge to adopt conservation agriculture fully.

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Cart laden with firewood in Gonzoma, Zimbabwe. Woodpoaching for household fuel is having an impact on forests in Zimbabwe. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
CHIMANIMANI, Zimbabwe, Nov 6 2024 (IPS)

Linet Makwera (28) has a baby strapped on her back as she totters barefoot, picking tiny pieces of wood on both sides of a dusty and narrow road, peering fearfully at people passing by along the road in Chimanimani’s Mutambara area in Gonzoma village located in Zimbabwe’s Manicaland Province, east of the country.

Her fears, Makwera says, are the patrolling plain clothes police officers, who often target people, cutting down the few available trees in search of firewood.

In the midst of firewood shortages countrywide, more than 300,000 trees were destroyed between 2000 and 2010, according to Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.

In fact, in 2011, the Forestry Commission of Zimbabwe found out that the country was losing about 330,000 hectares of forests per year. According to Global Forest Watch in 2010, Zimbabwe had 1.01 Mha of natural forest, extending over 2.7 percent of its land area. In 2023, it lost 4.67 kha of natural forest, equivalent to 3.27 Mt of CO₂ emissions.

A slight drop from the previous one, currently, Zimbabwe’s annual deforestation rate is estimated to be at 262,348.98 hectares per annum, the Forestry Commission says.

According to UNDP in 2022, the use of local forests for fuel wood has also been one of the many drivers of deforestation in the country.

UNDP has been on record, saying presently, fuel wood accounts for over 60 percent of the total energy supply in the country and almost 98 percent of rural people rely on fuel wood for cooking and heating.

The Forestry Commission says up to 11 million tons of firewood are needed for domestic cooking, heating and tobacco curing every year in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe is ranked top of the United Nations-ranked Least Developed Countries (LDCs) that have battled the highest rate of deforestation in the world, as many rural dwellers here depend on firewood for cooking.

Yet still, even as the felling of trees for firewood gets worse and worse in Zimbabwe, it is a crime for anybody to be found cutting trees for any purpose without the authorities’ blessing.

If caught on the wrong side of the law, a wood poacher can be fined USD 200 to 5,000

Like many villagers domiciled in her remote area, Makwera has to battle with firewood deficits as the forests disappear under massive deforestation.

But the laws prohibiting people from cutting down trees have also meant hard times for many, like Makwera.

Yet despite her struggles to find firewood often in order to cook food for her family, she (Makwera) has had to soldier on, just like many other villagers in her area.

With even the hills and mountains now running out of firewood in Makwera’s village, life has never been the same for the villagers, as they do not have electricity, which, even though it might have been there, would not have saved any purpose amid daily power cuts gripping the Southern African nation.

“Finding firewood is now a huge challenge. Yes, we buy. We have no choice. We suffer to find the firewood. In the hills and mountains where we used to find firewood, there is now nothing,” Makwera told IPS.

Named using vernacular Shona, a tsotso stove typically is a tin with holes pricked into it, with a few tiny sticks stashed inside the home-made stove to produce some fire heat needed for cooking.

Stung by the growing firewood deficits, Zimbabwean villagers are even resorting to buying firewood from woodpoachers moving around in scotch carts touting for customers.

Such are many, like 33-year-old Tigere Mhike, also a resident of Gonzoma village, who said he has been for a long time earning his living through selling firewood to the desperate villagers.

He does this illegally, and in order to escape the wrath of law enforcers, Mhike said he and his assistant often operate under the cover of darkness in their search for the wooden gold.

“Where we live here, there are now too many people who are crowded. Some pieces of land that had plenty of firewood are now occupied by more and more people. We now have to travel very long distances, waking up very early in the mornings sometimes at 2am to go and search for firewood so that we deliver to the villagers wanting the firewood. We sell one scotch-cart full of firewood at 25 (US) dollars,” Mhike told IPS.

Amid incessant droughts actuated by climate change that have also led to the gradual disappearance of Zimbabwe’s forests, with the use of tsotso stoves requiring fewer wood sticks to produce the cooking heat, villagers here have said they are gradually adapting to the crisis.

Even to environmental experts like Batanai Mutasa, part of the panacea to surmount firewood deficits has turned out to be the now popular tsotso stoves in the face of Zimbabwe’s laws forbidding the cutting down of trees.

Mutasa is also the spokesman for the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA), a non-governmental organization comprising of legal minds fighting for this country’s environment.

As the trees disappear amid firewood poaching in Zimbabwe’s villages like Gonzoma in Manicaland Province, Mutasa has a piece of advice.

“My advice to people struggling to find firewood in remote areas is that they should work together to find other means that protect our trees from being damaged, things like using biogas or stoves that don’t require much firewood like tsotso stoves,” he (Mutasa) told IPS.

In worst case scenarios, said Mutasa, to preserve forests as they search for firewood, people should resort to just plucking off branches from the surviving trees to use these to make fire, leaving the trees alive.

Mutasa said: “Mainly, people should make it their habit to plant and replant trees. People can team up with authorities in their villages to fight off woodpoachers in their areas.”

Another Gonzoma villager, Mzilikazi Rusawo, in his early sixties, said faced with desperate times in their search for firewood as the few forests are jealously guarded by law enforcers, they now have to seek permission from authorities before they cut selected trees for firewood.

“The law does not allow us to just cut down trees for firewood anyhow. We actually seek permission from authorities before cutting trees for firewood, which we do with care—sparsely cutting down the trees in order to leave many other trees standing,” Rusawo told IPS.

For the Zimbabwean government, the options are, however, fast running out as rural dwellers battle with firewood shortages.

Some of the options can not be afforded by many residents in rural areas in a country where more than 90 percent are jobless, according to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).

“Firewood shortages are a huge challenge for all people living in rural areas, but it is not only firewood that can be used for cooking. People can also use biogas,” Joyce Chapungu, spokesperson for the Environmental Management Agency (EMA), told IPS.

With the retail price of biogas in Zimbabwe going for approximately two dollars per kilogram, not many rural residents can afford buying the cooking gas.

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Faith Machavi pedals a bicycle at Mwenje Dumisani Secondary, Chiredzi, in Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
CHIREDZI, Zimbabwe, Oct 10 2024 (IPS)

Rejoice Muzamani is studying in preparation for her next paper during the end-of-term examinations at Mwenje Primary School in Chiredzi, southeast Zimbabwe.

The 13-year-old girl, who is in Grade 7 or final year of primary school, is not worried about leaving school early to make the 7-kilometer journey back home before dusk, risking attacks from wild animals. 

Muzamani, who stays with her grandmother as her parents live in neighboring South Africa, will still get there in time because she will pedal the narrow dirt unpaved road in this part of Masvingo Province.

“I get to school on time and I do not have to miss any lessons,” she tells IPS, adding that though it was her first time owning a bicycle, learning how to ride it was easier with the help of her friends.

“I also go home on schedule, sparing enough time to do my homework.”

Built for long distances and rugged terrain, the Buffalo bicycles help keep vulnerable girls in schools in rural areas.

Muzamani, who got hers in mid-2021, is one of the more than 62,248 students in Zimbabwe who have been given bicycles since 2009 by a United States-based charity, World Bicycle Relief.

About 70% of these are girls.

Born into a family of five, Muzamani lives in one of the remotest and poorest regions in Zimbabwe, with insufficient schools forcing many to walk up to 20 kilometres to get to the nearest school.

Girls face a myriad of challenges as they pursue their education in rural Zimbabwe.

Rejoice Muzamani with some of the bicycles girls ride at Mwenje Primary School in Chiredzi, Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

As a young girl, Muzamani, as part of the tradition, is expected to do house chores—cooking for the family and cleaning the house.

This takes most of her time and she cannot afford to lose more time when walking long distances to school.

Attacks from hyenas are also a threat to these girls in rural areas surrounded by game reserves.

“I used to be late and miss classes. I felt low. Despite waking up early in the morning, it was tough to get to school on time because of the house chores,” Muzamani says.

“I remember one day in winter, it was so dark that I was afraid to go to school. I started walking along with others. I also could not do homework because we had no electricity. I have to be home early and use daylight.”

Faith Machavi, a learner at Mwenje Dumisani Secondary, says some of her friends dropped out of school while some got married early because of long distances to school.

“I remember when I was still in primary school, I almost gave up. I told my mom that I was tired and I could not do this anymore. Walking to school daily against the background of being a girl child expected to do all the house chores is demoralizing,” she says, adding that her desire to be a lawyer kept her going.

“At some point, I could stay in the bush until others get dismissed and join them going back home.”

Machavi, who is preparing to write for her Ordinary Level final examinations this October, received a bicycle in 2022 after paying a small fee of less than USD 5.

“I was so happy. It was a relief,” she says, adding that she had learnt to ride a bicycle a few years earlier from other privileged children in the village.

Born into a family of five, Machavi no longer has to walk more than 5 kilometres to get to school.

She is not missing classes or feeling cramps anymore.

Child rights activists say education is a haven for girls.

Maxim Murungweni, a Zimbabwean child rights expert, says bicycles help girls access education.

“The bicycle initiative for girls does not only improve their mobility but also empowers the girls psychologically as well, giving them the ability to manage their day-to-day activities, as now they can plan knowing that they have the mobility to maneuver around,” he says.

Even though Zimbabwe outlawed child marriages in 2016 in a landmark ruling by the constitutional court, some of the existing laws were yet to be aligned to the country’s constitution.

But in May 2022, President Emmerson Mnangagwa signed into law the Marriages Act, which prohibits the marriage of minors under the age of 18.

In Zimbabwe, one woman out of three is married before reaching adulthood, and more than one out of five adolescents give birth, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.

Child marriages have devastating effects on girls, including dropping out of school and early pregnancies.

Sean Granville-Ross, executive director of programs at World Bicycle Relief, says this education-focused initiative is crucial for girls in Zimbabwe, where many face daily commutes of three to ten kilometers to reach school.

“This distance leads to significant dropout rates, especially for girls, due to safety concerns, exhaustion, and the risk of child marriage. Bicycles help reduce travel time, increase attendance, and enhance feelings of safety, with a 35 percent reduction in days late to school and a 35 percent increase in students feeling safer while traveling,” Sean Granville-Ross tells IPS.

“For girls, this means more opportunities to stay in school, pursue higher education, and avoid early marriage and pregnancy. By empowering girls with bicycles, we are not only improving their access to education but also providing a tool for broader community development, as bicycles are often used by their families for economic and household activities.”

Machavi, who is a junior councillor in this community, says many of her friends were married before reaching the legal marriage age.

“Most of my classmates who were married early are now being abused. I educate others on the impact of child marriages. Bicycles ensure girls stay in school. There is a policy that you cannot take out your bicycles during working hours without clearance. This means no loitering with boys from the community during school time,” she says.

Murungweni says they continue to encourage the government and other development partners to scale up such initiatives that help marginalised girls have easy access to education by improving their mobility.

Granville-Ross says they plan to expand the initiative to reach more girls across Zimbabwe in the next three years.

Muzamani, whose bicycle is maintained for free at school, says after completing her secondary school she wants to study accounting at university.

“To be an accountant is one of my dreams,” she says.

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Farmers, traders and consumers at the Mbare Musika Territorial Market in Harare, Zimbabwe. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
HARARE, Oct 4 2024 (IPS)

African policymakers, local leaders and the private sector have been asked to create an enabling environment that will help African traders and farmer folks build reliable systems for food security and resilience through territorial markets.

During a week-long 2024 Africa Agroecological Entrepreneurship and Seed Festival in Harare, Zimbabwe, experts observed that persistent crises have shown the importance of resilient close-to-home ‘territorial’ markets that feed billions of people every day—from public markets and street vendors to cooperatives, from urban agriculture to online direct sales, and from food hubs to community kitchens. 

“For instance, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global food prices spiked by 15 percent, forcing policymakers around the world to question how to reduce dependency on volatile global markets and strengthen food self-sufficiency,” said Dr. Million Belay, the General Coordinator at the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA). 

“Further, questions have been raised about how people are actually fed and by whom, prompting us to ask: in this century of crisis, what kinds of food supply chains and markets can build resilience and help fulfill the right to food—nourishing people around the world more sustainably and equitably?” asked Belay.

To answer the question, experts are calling for policies and a sound working environment that will empower territorial markets that promote dietary diversity and affordable nutritious foods for all, allow producers and food workers to retain control over their livelihoods, and produce food that is adaptable to climate change shocks and emerging crises.

These markets have been broadly defined as markets that are centered on small-scale agroecological food producers and business owners that produce and sell a variety of commodities, and often meet the preferences of the majority of farmers, traders and consumers.

Studies have shown that these markets play a crucial role in making food accessible and affordable, especially for low-income populations in the Global South, allowing for the purchase of small and flexible quantities of food, price bargaining, informal credit arrangements, and being located in or near low-income neighborhoods.

A new study launched on the sidelines of the Harare event that culminated into the fifth Biennial Africa Food Systems Conference, however, shows that profit-oriented corporate value chains are highly concentrated in Africa’s market places.

The report, titled ‘Food from Somewhere,’ by the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES Food), finds that just seven grain traders control at least 50 percent of the global grain trade, six major corporations control 78 percent of the agrochemical market, the top eight carriers of freight account for more than 80 percent of the market for ocean freight capacity and globally, 1 percent of the world’s largest farms control 70 percent of the world’s farmland.

This, according to experts, amounts to a corporate capture of Africa’s food systems.

The report is therefore advocating for a paradigm shift, urging governments to reinvest in local and regional supply infrastructure, relocalize public purchasing and develop food security strategies for a more resilient and equitable approach to food security.

“The problem for smallholders is not of being connected to markets (most are already involved in markets) but rather the conditions of their access and the rules and logics by which markets operate—who determines prices and on what criteria, who controls the costs of production, who holds market power, among other issues,” said Mamadou Goïta, a member of IPES and the lead author.

A spot check at the Mbare Musika territorial market in Harare found a variety of foodstuffs sourced from all eight regions of Zimbabwe, among others from neighboring countries, such as apples and other fruits from South Africa, fish and ginger from Mozambique, groundnuts from Malawi, sorghum from Botswana, as well as grapes from Egypt and tamarind from Tanzania, among others.

“This is the central hub for smallholder farmers and traders, supporting over seven million people from all over Zimbabwe and other parts of the continent,” said Charles Dhewa, Chief Executive Officer, Knowledge Transfer Africa (KTA), whose flagship known as eMkambo (eMarket) is to create a physical and web-based market for agriculture and rural development, integrating the use of mobile phones and the internet to create, adapt and share knowledge.

Mbare Musika Market, which is in the outskirts of Harare, is located next to the main bus-park, through which food is brought in using informal means such as passenger buses and vans from different parts of the country, in small and big quantities, and of different varieties and qualities.

“The evidence is clear—localized food systems are vital for feeding an increasingly hungry planet and preventing food insecurity and famine,” said Shalmali Guttal, the Executive Director of Focus on the Global South. “They provide nutritious, affordable food and are far more adaptable to global shocks and disruptions than industrial supply chains,” she added.

Jennifer Clapp, professor and Canada Research Chair in Global Food Security and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo, Canada, pointed out that during this time of rising hunger and ecological fragility, global industrial food chains will be catastrophically liable to break down under the strain of frequent crises.

“To have a chance of reaching the world’s zero hunger goal by 2030, we need to re-imagine our food systems, and we need to bolster the food markets that serve the poor,” she said.

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In order to reach the water lying deep underneath, Enia Tambo (59) uses a white 25-liter plastic bucket to pull out huge amounts of sand in the Vhombozi River in Mudzi district located in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland East Province. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS.

By Jeffrey Moyo
MUDZI, Zimbabwe, Sep 9 2024 (IPS)

Side-by-side with fellow male villagers, Enia Tambo uses a white 25-liter plastic bucket to dig out mounds of sand in the Vhombozi River, in Mudzi district located in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland East Province.

The woman, in her late 50s, is digging to reach the water that is lying deep beneath the soil. 

The El Niño-induced drought has such a severe impact on the rural area, which is located nearly 230 kilometers east of Harare, the nation’s capital, that finding water is a daily battle.

Tambo, wearing a yellow T-shirt emblazoned with a portrait of Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, had a red, white, black and yellow cloth wrapped around her waist and a white head tie over her head to shield her from the sun as she joined a group of sweaty young men using shovels digging the dry well.

An obviously thirsty herd of cattle, with their equally thirsty gang of small herd boys, waited in the midst of the dry river, hoping to quench their thirst in the scotching heat of this impoverished Zimbabwean district.

In the worst months of the El Niño-induced drought that severely affected Zimbabwe, more often than not, Mudzi villagers dig with their bare hands to access water in dry streams and wells, including the Vhombozi River.

Thanks to the El Niño-induced drought, villagers like Tambo have to do this for themselves and their cattle as they struggle to find the precious liquid.

Desperate for the life-saving resource, Tambo said they have no choice but to scramble for it, competing with their own cattle.

“We have a serious water challenge. We ask for help, at least with water taps and wells. We don’t have a dam or any functioning water source. We drink from the same source with our cattle, both women and men, as we find water by digging in the river sand to reach the water below,” 59-year-old Tambo, hailing from Mudzi’s Nyamudandara village, told IPS.

No Boreholes, No Taps, Add to Burden

Men have joined the fight to find water in dry rivers like Vhombozi in Zimbabwe’s Nyamudandara village in Mudzi district as a result of the severe water shortage. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS.

It never rains but pours problems for the many destitute villagers here. Once they have collected the water from deep in the riverbeds, they also have to struggle walking long distances balancing buckets of water on their heads to their homes.

Batanai Mutasa, a climate change expert doubling as the communications officer for the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association, pinned the blame on souring temperatures for the drying up of rivers, dams and boreholes.

“The El Nino heat is to blame for the drying up of boreholes and rivers. The changing weather patterns triggering floods, very hot conditions and poor rains are also resulting in acute food shortages,” Mutasa told IPS.

Reena Ghelani, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Climate Crisis Coordinator for the El Niño Response, commented after her recent visit to South Africa that the April/May harvests had failed, resulting in more than 20 million people experiencing food insecurity, with more than a million children at risk of severe acute malnutrition.

“In the face of such challenges, governments and regional bodies have stepped up, and partners have supported their efforts, including through emergency allocations from the Central Emergency Response Fund (OCHA Financing and Partnerships) and insurance payouts (through the African Risk Capacity (ARC) Group). But more needs to be done,” Ghelani said

In April this year, Elias Magosi, the executive secretary of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), went on record in the media lamenting the poor rains across the region.

“The 2024 rainy season has been a challenging one, with most parts of the region experiencing negative effects of the El Niño phenomenon characterized by the late onset of rains,” Magosi said.

According to the SADC block, nearly 68 million people across the region, including in Zimbabwe, where many like Tambo are living in impoverished villages like Nyamudandara in Mudzi, are suffering the effects of an El Niño-induced drought.

Child Labor, Sexual Exploitation Increase 

In such poor Zimbabwean villages, even underage children have had to quit their education as they help their parents and guardians find the precious liquid in the face of the grueling drought.

Some women have claimed that they face sexual abuse from powerful rural men controlling the only available water sources, where the women have claimed they are forced to trade sex for water.

“Men demand sex from us before they allow us to fetch water and our children have dropped out of school to help us find water daily,” a Mudzi woman who refused to be named fearing victimization told IPS.

Yet the water crisis headache is an ages-old problem in the Zimbabwean remote districts like Mudzi, according to villagers like 52-year-old Collen Nyakusawuka hailing from Mudzi’s Nyamudandara village.

But villagers have tried times without number seeking help from government authorities.

“This water problem for us in this village began in 1980 and to this day we still suffer without water, at times lodging our complaints with authorities with no help coming from them,” said Nyakusawuka.

Residents of Nyamudandara village in Mudzi, such as 30-year-old Freddy Nyamudandara, have claimed that the water crisis in their community has gotten out of hand and that many people like him are unable to cope.

“We have a real serious water challenge, which has worsened this year. We really need help with water for ourselves and our cattle for we don’t have a dam and the only available boreholes have malfunctioned,” Nyamudandara told IPS.

Borehole Promises Not Yet Realized

In Mudzi district, Kudzai Madamombe, the Medical District Officer says Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa promised to drill boreholes to assist the angry water-starved villagers, saying, “President Mnangagwa came up with the Presidential borehole-drilling scheme through which he said he will drill 70 boreholes for people in Mudzi.”

But so far, the community has not benefitted from the government scheme.

In its bid to fend off the mounting water crisis across Zimbabwe’s remote areas like Mudzi, UNICEF has also intervened.

Progress Katete, the UNICEF Nutritional Officer, said her organization has appealed for over USD 84 million to address the drought crisis that has ravaged districts like Mudzi.

“UNICEF has been supporting the government in the drilling of boreholes as well as putting in place piped water schemes because, as you can see, some of the communities—the women and men in the community—have to walk very long distances to fetch water and sometimes it’s not even safe water. In some instances, school-going children miss school because they have to go fetch water for the family,” Katete told IPS.

Mudzi district’s Ward 17 councilor, Kingston Shero, noted that there wasn’t enough funding for every village to get a borehole. “Due to inadequate resources, just a few villages have managed to get help from the council with boreholes.”

The El Niño event, which helped fuel a spike in global temperatures and extreme weather around the world, is expected to return to La Niña conditions later this year, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Ghelani said that the region should receive normal to above-average rains in October–December, which could boost the planting season and help with recovery but could also lead to localized flash foods—especially on dry land—and pest infestations. And without adequate support, families who’ve sold their livestock and assets won’t be able to recover.

In an appeal for funding, she said: “We must provide support now to save lives and alleviate suffering, rather than wait for the crisis to deepen.”

For Tambo, until the rains return, her daily grind will involve digging river beds and hoping to get enough water to drink for herself and her family.

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Fisherman Godknows Skota holds gutted and cleaned fish. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Aug 13 2024 (IPS)

Local informal food markets feed millions of urbanites in bustling African cities, but the consequences of tainted food could be illness and death for unsuspecting consumers.

Over 130,000 people across Africa fall ill and die from consuming unsafe food, according to the World Health Organization (WHO)

An estimated 70 percent of Africa’s urban households buy food from informal markets, such as street vendors, kiosks, and traditional market sellers. Despite being key to food and nutrition security, informal food markets have traditionally been neglected in terms of improved food safety practices, the International Livestock Research Institute  (ILRI) has noted.

Informal food markets are crucial economic engines, providing livelihoods for many but hygiene concerns, and regulatory uncertainties pose threats to the growth of these markets where people buy and sell food.

Fishworker, Godknows Skota, from Binga District, trades in kapenta fish (Tanganyika sardine) and the Kariba Bream (Tilapia) harvested from Lake Kariba, north of Zimbabwe, which finds its way to public markets in the city of Bulawayo, more than 400 km away.

“Fish go bad easily if they are not handled and prepared well, which means I must ensure I process them in a hygienic manner so that I do not throw away my catch,” Skota told IPS as he cleaned a catch of Bream fish for a customer at a fishing camp in Binga, south of Lake Kariba.

“I salt the fish to preserve them and I take precautions to ensure that the fish are not contaminated by dirt during processing and I use enough salt to preserve the fish well so that they do not rot,”  Skota said.

John Oppong-Otoo, Food Safety Officer, AU-IBAR. Credit: African Union

The significant burden of poor food safety on the continent’s health systems is also reflected in its economic impact. Illnesses due to food-borne diseases cause around USD 15 billion in medical expenses annually, according to the World Bank which estimates that food-borne diseases are associated with productivity losses of up to USD 16 billion across Africa.

“Not that the informal food sector is responsible for the disease burden but that we need to have more focus on this sector because it is important and contributes almost 80 percent of the food consumed by urban dwellers,” said John Oppong-Otoo, Food Safety Officer, African Union’s International Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR).

The African Union (AU) and ILRI have produced the first framework of food safety guidelines to support African governments’ efforts to improve food safety across the continent’s informal food sector. The draft guidelines have been developed following the AU’s Food Safety Strategy for Africa, published in 2021 to encourage improvements in food safety management.

Oppong-Otoo highlighted that the new guidelines will provide realistic and practical guidance to help governments work with the informal food sector to manage food safety risks and deliver safe food. Food risk can emanate from processed or raw food that can be contaminated, poor handling of food, and infrastructure, for instance, in informal markets.

“It is not that people want to produce unsafe food, it is just that they are not aware that their practices could lead to the production of unsafe food and so they need to be guided,”  Oppong-Otoo told IPS, noting that unsafe food undermines the human right to food and nutrition security for millions of Africans annually.

Food safety is a major health and economic burden across Africa. According to ILRI research, Africa is responsible for most of the global health burden caused by food-borne diseases.

Silvia Alonso, Principal Scientist Epidemiologist, at the Nairobi-based ILRI, says the guidelines are being developed under a continent-wide consultation with informal market traders, agro-processing actors, and governments. African governments are expected to domesticate the guidelines by developing regulatory frameworks and administration practices to support their implementation.

Alonso told IPS that the guidelines under development by the AU and ILRI are currently undergoing a consultation process, with informal and agri-sector actors, partners, as well as with AU member states, before approval in 2025.

“Since the guidelines are also informed by ILRI’s research as well as examples of successful interventions for improving food safety across Africa, we also hope to demonstrate to national governments that a new approach to informal food markets is possible and is entirely to their benefit,” said Alonso, explaining that while not expected to be legally binding, the consultation process should pique the interest from governments on seeing the guidelines implemented in their countries.

ILRI has supported informal food markets across Africa through training on food safety. For example, in Kenya, the More Milk project has trained more than 200 milk vendors in Eldoret, to improve hygiene and handling practices.

Milk vendor Francisca Mutai, from Kenya, said she has gained knowledge on milk hygiene and improved her engagement with customers. Her customer base increased and she expanded her business, leading to increased profits.

“With this knowledge, I am able to advise my suppliers and customers on hygienic milk handling and the nutritional benefits of milk,” Mutai said.

Another milk vendor, Daniel Kembo, also from Kenya, switched from using plastic containers to aluminum ones, which ensured better hygiene and quality of milk.  As a result, he has increased his milk sales.

While in Ethiopia, a consumer awareness campaign helped reduce the recall of tomatoes sold on the informal markets. Dubbed “Abo! Eat the Intact Ones” (Abo is an Amharic word similar to ‘hey’), the campaign achieved a 78 percent recall rate, driving demand for intact, or safe, tomatoes in Dire Dawa and Harar areas by enhancing safe household tomato preparation practices.

Akintayo Oluwagbemiga Elijah, chief whip of the Oyo State Butchers Association in the Bodija Market, in Ibadan, Nigeria, has been made aware of hygienic practices in meat handling and processing. He now pays serious attention to the cleanliness of the slab where cows are slaughtered and uses potable water to clean the meat and its products.

Oppong-Otoo, said promoting food safety in informal markets is one of the targets of an ongoing One Health initiative of the African Union because food trade is an opportunity for economic growth under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

“The informal food sector, which includes people handling and producing food, is at the heart of the AfCFTA and it means that if we can support them to consistently produce and market safer food, then we would have more commodities to be traded,” he said. “The AU Food Safety Strategy recognizes that even though Africa has huge agriculture resources, we have not been able to fully tap their potential because of the production of unsafe food.”

It is projected that by 2030, intra-African agricultural trade will increase by 574 percent if import tariffs are eliminated under the AcFTA. This would be a great boost for the continent that spends over USD 50 billion annually in food imports, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB).

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Women waiting to be screened for cervical cancer at a hospital in the Zimbabwean capital Harare. Zimbabwe has rising cancer cases and deaths the detection of the disease often comes too late. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, Jul 29 2024 (IPS)

Earlier this year, then 46-year-old Lydia Musundiwa, based in the Zimbabwean capital Harare, was diagnosed with colon cancer, which, already at an advanced stage, killed her in less than two months.

Now, Landeni, her 49-year-old widower, has to contend with the burden of looking after their three children single-handedly.

In Zimbabwe, a lack of cancer awareness and radiotherapy treatment is problematic, as cancer is only picked up in the late stages.

Based on the Global Cancer Observatory data, four years ago, Zimbabwe reported 16,083 new cases of cancer and 10,676 deaths due to the disease.

On X, formerly Twitter, Hopewell Chin’ono, a renowned Zimbabwean freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker with thousands of followers on his handle, has gone on record protesting the ravages of cancer in the Southern African nation, which he calls a “carefree” regime.

“Zimbabwe doesn’t have a single working radiotherapy cancer treatment machine. If you get cancer in Zimbabwe today, it’s a death sentence. You will die,” Chin’ono said.

The Zimbabwean government last year came out in the state media claiming it had purchased new, advanced radiotherapy machines used to treat cancer.

However, appearing before the country’s Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care last year in March, Zimbabwe’s Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Jasper Chimedza, said the country had only a single functional radiotherapy machine to service all the country’s cancer patients.

As a result, many Zimbabweans, like Lydia, have had the disease detected at an advanced stage, resulting in a painful demise.

Unable to afford private healthcare, Zimbabwe’s cancer patients, both young and old, very often die without treatment.

One such young patient is 22-year-old Tangai Chaurura, who suffers from liver cancer and, doctors told him the cancer is already at stage four. His brother, Mevion, says Chaurura is now only receiving home-based care.

“We are just waiting for his final day. We can’t lie to ourselves that he will live given his dire condition now unless a miracle happens,” Chaurura’s brother, Mevion, told IPS.

There are no recorded statistics for the young people battling cancer in this Southern African nation, but the Zimbabwe National Cancer Registry’s latest statistics show that 7,841 new cancer cases were diagnosed in 2018.

Then, the majority of the cancers recorded were cervical cancer, prostate cancer and breast cancer.

However, the Cancer Association of Zimbabwe says that cancer is not necessarily a death sentence.

“There are quite a number of myths and misconceptions about cancer and that is one of the reasons why people think that having cancer is actually a death sentence, but at the Cancer Association of Zimbabwe, we know that is not true,” the association’s information research and evaluation officer, Lovemore Makurirofa, told IPS.

Makurirofa said cancers were increasing every year in Zimbabwe and these, to him, were officially recorded cases at public hospitals, with many other cancer cases going unnoticed.

As cancer ravages many in Zimbabwe, Makurirofa said the answer lies in “leading a healthy lifestyle where people have a good diet and exercise.”

A Zimbabwean government health official said many people were succumbing to cancer because of the late detection of the disease.

Last year, in Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya and Zimbabwe, the World Health Organization launched an initiative to support better access to breast and cervical cancer detection, treatment and care services.

Then, remarking at the initiative, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, said: “Early detection is a key contributor to better cancer treatment outcomes. With this approach, we aim to bolster the role of primary health care services to help avert the excess mortality of African women from preventable cancers.”

The WHO, however, says that limited access to early detection, diagnosis, and treatment services, as well as a lack of awareness of the disease, have made early detection difficult throughout Africa and Zimbabwe in particular.

With Zimbabwe not spared, based on the 2018 Global Survey of Clinical Oncology Workforce, a single oncologist provides care for between 500 and 1000 patients across many African countries, which is up to four times the International Atomic Energy Agency recommendation of 200 to 250 patients per oncologist.

Zimbabwean cancer activists like Bakie Padzaronda, based in New Jersey in the USA, have said cancer treatment in Zimbabwe is on the expensive side, making it unaffordable for many.

“Medication and treatment must not be as punitive as they are today. It needs to be affordable and we expect the government to look into this seriously by subsidizing the costs of treatment. Hospitals must be equipped with proper and modern medical equipment,” Padzaronda told IPS.

But as cancer cases keep rising in Zimbabwe, cancer experts like Michelle Madzudzo have said the country’s growing aging population and urbanization contribute to the disease.

“The rise in cancer cases can be attributed to aging populations, urbanization and changes in lifestyle,” Madzudzo told IPS. “In our country, cancer mortality rates are high due to various factors, which include late detection and diagnosis.”

Founder and president of Talk Cancer Zimbabwe, an organization whose mandate is to help improve cancer awareness, Madzudzo is a Zimbabwean radiation therapist.

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A field of maize spoiled by drought in Zambia, one of the countries that has declared an emergency as it grapples with the effects of El Niño. Credit: WFP/Gabriela Vivacqua

By Kevin Humphrey
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Jul 23 2024 (IPS)

Heading into the traditional dry period of winter in southern Africa, there was significant consternation due to the drastically below average rainfall the region has been experiencing since January 2024.

Countries, including Botswana, Mozambique, Angola, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia, have only received less than 20 percent of the rainfall that they usually receive in the month of February. The driest January/February period in 40 years, according to a report issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Agriculture in these large areas of southern Africa has been seriously affected, as farming is rainfall-dependent with no access to irrigation systems.

Edward Phiri cooking mealies (maize) on an open fire at his vegetable stall in a busy street in Windsor West, Johannesburg. Edward, mentioned how expensive mealies had become in the last few months and that he was the only vegetable stall selling cooked maize. All the other stalls (at least 15 in a small but densely populated area) had closed down due to high costs. Credit: Kevin Humphrey/IPS

Machinda Marongwe, programme director of Oxfam Southern Africa, said the region is “in crisis” and called on donors to “immediately release resources” to prevent an “unimaginable humanitarian situation.”

“With all these countries facing multiple crises simultaneously, the urgency cannot be overstated,” Marongwe said.

In southern Africa, a region Oxfam describes as a “climate disaster hotspot,” El Nino, the climate pattern that originates along the equator in the Pacific Ocean, has severely influenced the weather in the region. A feature of El Nino is that it brings high temperatures and low rainfall to southern Africa. This dries out the ground, causing floods when it does rain.

Professor Jasper Knight of the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at Wits University spoke to IPS about the current extreme weather conditions.

A prolonged dry spell in southern Africa in early 2024 scorched crops and threatened food security for millions of people. The ongoing El Nino, which altered rainfall patterns during the growing season, has played a significant role in fueling the drought. Credit: NASA

“We are in an oscillating period of El Nino, and this causes variability in regional rainfall across southern Africa. Some parts of the region are very dry and have experienced heat waves; parts of southern Lesotho are currently in a crisis state of drought, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFRC),” says Knight.

“But this water crisis isn’t just about rainfall; it is also about managing water more effectively when it is already scarce. The water infrastructure in southern Africa is not fit for purpose and this makes the situation worse. Developing more resilient infrastructure will help buffer some of the negative effects of rainfall variability. This in turn will help society cope with drought events.”

In addition to the problem of raising crops, which has led to very real risks of food insecurity, a lack of water has ushered in widespread outbreaks of cholera. The rainy season misfired and became a drought and the fact that the next wet season is months away increases fears for the region as a whole in terms of the provision of food and the effects on people’s lives economically and in terms of dangerous health threats.

According to the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), southern Africa is in the grip of an urgent crisis.

FANRPAN stated in a recent media briefing that “the situation is dire and demands immediate attention. Widespread crop failure looms in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Livestock are dying at alarming rates due to a lack of water and vegetation.

“The movement of desperate people and animals is spreading diseases, including those transmissible to humans.”

A drought disaster was declared in Zambia on February 29 and Malawi’s president followed suit on March 23—for the fourth year in a row that weather conditions have led the country to do this. 

The World Food Programme (WFP) said El Niño was “exacerbating the devastating effects of the climate crisis in Malawi.” Zimbabwe joined them in early April.

Reuters reported Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa as saying, “More than 2.7 million people in the country will go hungry this year and more than USD 2 billion in aid is required for the country’s national response.”

Joe Glauber, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), spoke to IPS.

“This year’s El Nino-related production shortfalls are partially offset by larger carrying stocks following large maize crops in 2022 and 2023.  Poor crops have already resulted in increased imports in countries like Zimbabwe. Exports are expected to fall as stocks tighten in the region. The coming La Niña will hopefully bring needed precipitation to the region later this year, which should mean that the drought-related shortages are relatively short-lived.”

After heating up the eastern Pacific Ocean for about a year, El Niño finally died out in May 2024. As of July 2024, the eastern Pacific was in a neutral phase, but the reprieve may be short-lived. Credit: NASA

This hopeful forecast is also mentioned in a blog published, on April 10, 2024, by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Entitled “Southern Africa drought: Impacts on maize Production,” Joseph Glauber and Weston Anderson wrote: “Unlike 2014 to 2016, when key producer-exporter South Africa suffered back-to-back droughts, this year’s drought follows a year of good harvest and stock building. Larger beginning stocks will help buffer the impact of the current drought. However, supplies from outside the region will be necessary to meet consumption needs, and exports will likely decline, particularly to markets outside of Southern Africa.”

Drought and the attendant extreme hardships that it causes are undoubtedly creating havoc in the region. Hopefully, food stocks from countries like South Africa will go some way to alleviating this crisis and that this coming spring, there will be ample rain and bumper crops.

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The maggots that are making animal feed more affordable in Zimbabwe come from the black soldier flies. These are being used in several countries in Africa. Credit: IITA

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, May 31 2024 (IPS)

Three years ago, 43-year-old Benard Munondo was an “ordinary” Zimbabwean teacher at a local primary school, but now he has turned maggots into gold.

Thanks to maggot farming, Munondo, who has never owned a home nor driven a car, now has both.

In 2020, a week’s training on maggot farming changed his world.

One of the maggot farming trainers posted an advertisement on social media that lured Munondo in.

“Discover the Fascinating World of Maggot Farming! Whether you’re a farmer looking to boost your livestock’s nutrition or an entrepreneur seeking a unique venture, this training is for you! Fee: USD 30. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to revolutionize your farming practices,” reads the advertisement. This seized his attention.

Since then, he has not turned back and maggot farming has become a way of life in a country with 90 percent unemployment, according to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).

Instead, Munondo, like several other maggot entrepreneurs, has become more of an employer after he set up a maggot plot of land just a year after he received training in farming the worms.

He has not, however, quit his teaching job, saying maggot farming, thanks to his workforce of 14 people at his plot outside the Zimbabwean capital Harare, has become his side job.

In fact, maggot farming, which involves breeding and harvesting maggots for various purposes such as producing cheap, high-protein animal feed, composting, and waste management, has become a big hit in Zimbabwe.

Many Zimbabweans, like Munondo in the capital, Harare, who are involved in maggot farming, are using the maggots to feed their own home-grown chickens.

For Munondo, that has helped cut costs for the over 800 chickens he rears in his backyard.

It now costs just USD 3.50 for entrepreneurs like Munondo to fully breed one chicken using maggots, compared to USD 6.50 using soy-based feed.

Thanks to maggot farming, Munondo claimed he was raking in 70 to 80 dollars a day from selling maggots alone, which he said at the end of the month exceeded the total he earns from his teaching job.

An average school teacher in Zimbabwe earns about USD 200 every month after tax deductions and for many, like Munondo, maggot farming has come in handy to supplement his meagre earnings from his government job.

With garbage going uncollected for long periods across Zimbabwe’s towns and cities, thanks to poor service delivery by council authorities, Munondo said some residents are buying maggots to destroy uncollected waste.

“The same maggots that are feeding my chickens are being used to get rid of uncollected waste.”

As maggot farming gains traction in Zimbabwe, even young people like 23-year-old Jonathan Pamhare in Harare have found something to gain from the maggots.

“I don’t really do maggot farming, but I’m interested in them and I started a training company that offers agricultural training, and among the trainings is maggot farming,” Pamhare told IPS.

Well versed in all the procedures related to maggot farming, Pamhare also said, “It (maggot farming) is the most profitable business because your expense is mostly your time.”

As such, added Pamhare, they (the maggots) feed on just anything rotten that comes within their reach.

This, Pamhare said, is cheap, coming more often than not at zero cost, with the maggots maturing in a period of about two weeks.

From his training venture, Pamhare made his money, charging between USD 30 and 40 per head for all the trainees that he recruits.

In high-density areas of Harare like Sunningdale, five kilometers east of Harare, thanks to maggot farming trainers, several homes boast of rearing chickens for sale and feeding them using maggots.

Battling high prices for chicken feed has become a thing of the past, as many urban chicken farmers now switch to maggots to fatten their chickens.

But these are no ordinary maggots, according to many, like Munondo, who has made a name for himself as a thriving maggot farmer.

Maggots begin as what Munondo called black soldier flies—literally giant black flies—which, through metamorphosis, turn into maggots. Pig farmers have also embraced them and are now feeding their pigs the protein-rich maggots.

The black soldier flies, popularly known as BSF here, have a four-stage life cycle from egg to larvae to pupa to adult fly.

The BSF deposit their eggs near a food source and after about three to four days, the flies grow into larvae that feed on the waste prior to being harvested.

There are no latest official statistics about maggot farmers in Zimbabwe, but the Zimbabwe Organic and Natural Food Association has been on record in the media, claiming that of late the number of maggot farmers has been growing.

The reason, said Munondo, is that maggot farming is the easiest.

“Maggots don’t require much land, while they need neither chemicals nor lots of water in order to be reared. Just a small land piece, flies, and waste, which are the most crucial components, are all one requires in order to kickstart maggot farming,” said Munondo.

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Dry conditions and extreme heat are changing natural wildlife habitat and behavior. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, May 17 2024 (IPS)

Rising temperatures are being blamed for an increase in human-wildlife conflicts in Zimbabwe as animals such as snakes leave their natural habitat earlier than usual.

High temperatures have also given rise to early fire seasons, driving wild animals into human-populated areas, authorities say, placing the lives of many in danger in a country with already compromised health services.

This is also happening at a time when agencies such as the World Health Organization are highlighting the link between climate change and health and calling for increased research.

Globally, unprecedented high temperatures are being blamed for devastating wildfires, and low income African countries such as Zimbabwe that are bearing the brunt of climate change have not been spared.

At the beginning of the year, Zimbabwe’s health ministry reported a spike in the number of snake bites as snakes moved into areas inhabited by humans.

Residents witnessing the upsurge of snakes within residential areas say this has coincided with extreme heat being experienced across the country, while snake catchers in the country’s cities are also recording booming business.

Wildlife authorities say disappearing natural habitat for wildlife has led to increasing endangerment for humans, while climate researchers have noted a link between rising temperatures and snake attacks.

The Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Authority (Zimparks) says brumation, the period snakes spend in hibernation, has been shortened by extended, unusually high temperatures as snakes move from their hiding places earlier than during normal seasonal temperatures.

Shorter winters and longer days have also become normal in a rapidly changing global climate, researchers note, forcing wildlife to adapt and, in some circumstances, move to human-populated areas.

This has led to a record number of snake bites, says Tinashe Farawo, the parks and wildlife spokesperson.

High temperatures in Zimbabwe are also being blamed for extended fire seasons as dry conditions provide ideal conditions for the spread of veld fires.

And as the veld fires spread, dangerous wildlife such as snakes seek safety elsewhere, further endangering the lives of humans, Zimparks officials say.

Affected communities, however, find themselves in a fix regarding how to deal with this climate driven phenomenon.

It is a punishable offence in Zimbabwe to kill wildlife and protected snake species even when humans feel their lives are threatened, highlighting the impact and complexity of climate change on biodiversity and ecological balance.

“As ecosystems change, people and wildlife roam farther in search of food, water and resources. The issue of human-wildlife conflict in Zimbabwe is increasingly gaining traction,” said Washington Zhakata, climate change management director in the environment ministry.

“Rising temperatures are affecting vegetation, food sources, access to water and much more. Ecosystems are gradually becoming uninhabitable for certain animals, forcing wildlife to migrate outside of their usual patterns in search of food and liveable conditions,” Zhakata told IPS.

Zimbabwe has in recent months registered record high temperatures that have affected everything from crops to people’s health, at a time when global temperatures have also soared, triggering a raft of environmental, social, economic, and health challenges.

Researchers have noted that global warming has over the years disrupted biodiversity, forcing wildlife to move to more habitable regions, and, in the process, upsetting natural ecosystems.

“In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, during periods of drought, people and their livestock are competing with wildlife for diminishing resources,” said Nikhil Advani, senior director of wildlife and climate resilience at the World Wildlife Fund.

Amid the challenges brought by climatic shifts, experts say improved interventions are needed to navigate increasing human-wildlife conflict.

Despite all evidence, least-developed countries such as Zimbabwe have struggled to mobilize and channel resources towards climate management programmes, exposing both humans and wildlife to open conflict.

“There are a number of interventions that can help mitigate human-wildlife conflict, for example, predator-proof bomas (safe areas) and early warning systems for wild animals in the area. One key thing is that communities need to see the benefits of living with wildlife,” Advani said.

While Zimbabwe has the Communal Areas Management for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) aimed at helping address issues such as human-wildlife conflict, broader issues that include the impact of climate change on ecology remain unaddressed, affected communities say.

“Initiatives like eco-tourism are an excellent way for communities to see the benefits of living with wildlife, as long as the tourism ventures have strong inclusion of local communities throughout the value chain,” Advani added.

With climate researchers warning that the globe will continue warming, concerns linger about the long-term impact of climate change on human-wildlife conflict as communities struggle to normalize cohabiting with dangerous animals.

“Already today we face an exponential increase, compared to 30 years ago, in climate and weather-related natural disasters. These disasters are causing catastrophic loss of life and habitat for people, pets, and wildlife,” Zhakata said.

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Tapera Saizi, a carpenter stationed at Juru Growth Point, has managed to take care of his family through his rural business. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
JURU Growth Point, ZIMBABWE, Apr 16 2024 (IPS)

With heavy sweat drenching his face and his shirt soaked in the sweat, 39-year-old Proud Ndukulani wrestled with a homemade knife, which he dipped in some used oil, before turning the glistening knife upon a rather tough and dusty tyre obtained from what he said was a forklift.

His assistant stood by his side as he (Ndukulani) cut some tough rubber from the giant tyre lying outside an open shade roofed with aging asbestos sheets at Juru Growth Point, located 52 km east of Harare in Zimbabwe’s Goromonzi district in the country’s Mashonaland East province. 

From these rubber pieces, Ndukulani, operating his entity known as Sinyoro, said he made suspension bushings for vehicles of all shapes and sizes, while he also made the same for engine mountings, a business he said he has been running for the past three years.

At a popular nightclub known as CNN, a dressmaker in his 80s was busy on his sewing machine. A pile of clothes he was mending was scattered on his old wooden table, upon which also sat his old sewing machine, branded Singer, with customers, young and old, swarming around him.

Despite business confidence being at its lowest across Zimbabwe’s towns and cities, backyard entrepreneurs’ activities in remote areas are thriving, although they are contending with their own share of hurdles amid Zimbabwe’s comatose economy.

“I make bushings for vehicle suspension and engine mounting. I have been in this business for the past three years,” Ndukulani told IPS as he wiped some sweat off his face using the back of his right hand.

He (Ndukulani) boasted of making about USD 300 to 400 each month at his workshop, housed in the shade once used as a market for vendors.

Forty-year-old Tapera Saizi, a carpenter also stationed at Juru Growth Point at his workshop named Madzibaba Furnitures, said he had come a long way with his enterprise.

For years, Juru Growth Point has become famed for its bustling activities as it teems with entrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes, some like Saizi, who is making wardrobes, kitchen cabinets, chairs, and beds.

For over two decades since the Zimbabwean government seized land from white commercial farmers in its quest to address land ownership imbalances, the economy has taken a nosedive.

Dozens of industries shut down, leading to ballooning joblessness in the country, with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) putting the rate of unemployment at 90 percent countrywide.

ZCTU is the primary trade union federation in Zimbabwe.

Yet even so, the southern African nation’s rural dwellers have endured, stepping up with survival means amid the mounting hardships.

Like 46-year-old Mashoko Kufazvinei, a proud owner of a vehicle repair workshop at Juru Growth Point, who said he had been operating his workshop for two decades.

“I started working on this business in 2004. I was working in the Midlands, where I trained as a motor mechanic and I had to come here in 2004 to set up my business,” Kufazvinei said.

From the proceeds of his enterprise, he said he is paying for his children’s education—five of them, while his first-born son, 24-year-old Simbarashe, is already working with him after completing his high school education.

Not only that, but Kufazvinei said that thanks to his motor repair enterprise, he has also built his own rural home, and he now owns a piece of land that he bought at Juru Growth Point to build another family house.

As a Mazda open-truck vehicle drove into Kufazvinei’s workshop, he said, “I have my own car, the one you are seeing arriving here, which I bought using proceeds from this business.”

Like Saizi, who lamented that business was slow at Juru Growth Point, Kufazvinei also acknowledged that these days things were hard as vehicle owners were without money to spend on fixing their cars.

For five years, Saizi said he has been operating as a carpenter at Juru Growth Point, and just like many, such as Kufazvinei, through his carpentry business, he has managed to take care of his family, paying fees for his five school-going children.

“We don’t struggle to find at least a little money, even if we may fail to overcome all the difficulties. We won’t fail to raise money to buy basics like salt and slippers for children and other basics,” Saizi told IPS.

He used an electric planer to refine a wooden bed that he was working on while being interviewed.

But local authorities are not pleased with the rural entrepreneurs’ endeavors, blaming them for triggering disorder, particularly at Juru Growth Point.

“These backyard entrepreneurs are often dirty and they don’t want to work outside the center of the growth point where we allocate them space. They prefer being within the shopping center. Usually, the places we allocate them are far from the shops, but they want where there is activity where they can meet customers,” Rose Hondo, a revenue officer at the council office at Juru Growth Point, told IPS.

As rural entrepreneurs thrive in this southern African nation, the country’s permanent secretary in the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Mavis Sibanda, has gone on record in the media claiming the government is scaling up rural industrialization.

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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is training young beekeepers in Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
CHIMANIMANI, Zimbabwe, Mar 15 2024 (IPS)

Honeybees quickly react with a sharp and loud buzz sound as beekeeper Tanyaradzwa Kanangira opens one of the wooden horizontal Kenyan top bar hives near a stream in a thick forest in Chimanimani, 412 kilometres from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

The 26-year-old puffs some smoke, a safety measure, as he holds and inspects a honeycomb built from hexagons by the honey bees.

Many people in this part of the country rely on many forms of agriculture, from agroforestry and horticulture to crop production.

Nonetheless, with increasing floods and droughts as a result of climate change, both rainfed and irrigation agriculture have become somewhat unreliable, forcing farmers to diversify into other forms of farming like apiculture to sustain their livelihoods.

Kanangira is part of the 11 young people in Chimanimani, Manicaland Province, who have been supported by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) with training in beekeeping as well as market linkages since June 2023.

“Factors to consider when establishing an apiary include the type of forage, such as flowers and herbs, warm climatic conditions, and water availability,” says Kanangira, wearing a white sting-proof bee suit.

Silence Dziwira, another beekeeper, says the use of chemicals by farmers is restricted in areas surrounding an apiary.

“We are planting bushy trees within the apiary and other different speeches. This helps in keeping the ground intact, preventing land degradation,” Dziwira, a mother of one, whose first harvest was late in 2023 and supplies the local market, tells IPS.

Beekeeping is not new in Zimbabwe, as it is part of the tradition and culture.

The knowledge has been passed from generation to generation.

But traditionally, people used log hives, which promoted deforestation.

In this day and age, farmers use modern-day hives like the Kenyan top bar hive used in Chimanimani, made out of sustainable materials.

An agroecology case study from the Alliance for Food Sovereignty Africa shows that there are more than 50,000 beekeepers in Zimbabwe today.

Patrice Talla, FAO representative in Zimbabwe, says they are supporting the beekeepers with capacity building on beekeeping, including hive making, honey harvesting and processing, and business management.

“Since 2021, FAO, under the Green Jobs project, has trained and equipped 300 youth in selected communities to increase employment amongst rural youths, enhance food security, reduce poverty, and support environmental sustainability,” he tells IPS.

To date, 319 beehives have been built to set up apiaries in different areas, according to Talla.

So far, out of 48 hives belonging to Kanangira and team, 13 have been colonised with Apis mellifera honey bees, the size of a paper clip.

Admire Munjuwanjuwa, a beekeeping expert based in Mutare, says beekeeping helps preserve forests.

“Beekeeping reduces deforestation because people cannot cut trees where there are bees; by so doing, trees will work as carbon sinks and reduce climate change,” he says.

A beekeeper holds a honeycomb in Chimanimani, Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

Robert Mutisi, another beekeeping expert, says apiaries protect the forests that act as bee habitats as well as sources of nectar.

“Beekeeping encourages farmers to plant trees and not cut trees indiscriminately. Beekeeping can act as a fire protection tool to guard against forest and vegetation destruction,” he says.

Kanangira says they have planted 3500 gum trees covering more than 2 hectares.

Three out of every four leading food crops for human consumption and more than a third of agricultural land worldwide depend in part on pollinators, according to the FAO.

Talla says bees are a barometer of the health of natural ecosystems and pollinators in forests.

“They play a major role in maintaining biodiversity, including wild, horticultural, and agricultural crops,” he says.

People consume honey as food, spreading it on bread and as a sweetener in tea.

Other byproducts of bees include beeswax, propolis, and pollen.

Traditionally, the beekeeping industry has been male-dominated but there has been growing interest in the sector by women building and running their apiaries across the country.

In Chimanimani, out of Kanangira’s team of 11 people, seven are women, showing that they are changing the narrative.

These beekeepers get monthly stipends from FAO.

“Earning a living from beekeeping makes me happy. As a woman, I did not think that I could venture into such a project as beekeeping,” says Dziwira, a mother of two.

“This initiative has made me realise my full potential as a woman and that I can successfully run a big project.”

Talla says revenue generated from the initiative will be saved and used to pay wages beyond the two-year support.

FAO’s beekeeping project, Green Jobs for Rural Youth Employment, funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), is currently being implemented in three countries, including Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, and Timor-Leste.

In Zimbabwe, the project is running in six districts, targeting young people.

Kanangira, who uses the money from beekeeping to look after his siblings, is planning to supply honey to markets in Harare.

“We plan to sell in large quantities to companies in Harare. To add value, we want to have a processing plant where we make things like toothpaste and floor polish using products from honeybees,” he says.

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Economic Commission for Africa’s Executive Secretary, Claver Gatete. Credit: ECA

By Busani Bafana
VICTORIA FALLS, Zimbabwe, Mar 11 2024 (IPS)

With 20 percent of the global population and vast untapped natural resources, not forgetting its human capital, it is time Africa had its rightful seat at the global table, the United Nations Under Secretary and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Claver Gatete, has called.

Decrying that Africa has been on the back foot on the global stage when key political and economic decisions are made, Gatete says it is time Africa claimed its voice. Gatete told a recent conference of African finance ministers in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, that Africa is in a financial and fiscal crisis because a global financial system does not have the interests of the continent at heart.

Africa Must Be Heard

“So, what will it take for African countries to really feel heard? Gatete asked.

“It is okay for us to say that 80 years ago, Africa was not at the table. It is probably acceptable to say that when the Millennium Development Goals were adopted, we were also at the periphery,” he said, adding, “But we will not be forgiven today if we do not occupy center stage as architects of a new global financial architecture that works for us.”

Africa, he noted, was facing multiple crises that it was not directly responsible for but bore the worst impacts from the Ukraine-Russia war, COVID-19, and high indebtedness to climate change.

The financial difficulties that Africa is currently facing are not solely the result of COVID-19 or recent conflicts but also have their roots in an inadequate global financial architecture and a multilateral financial system that does not adequately serve Africa’s needs, Gatete told IPS.

The African Union is pushing for Africa to have a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Referring to the creation of the UN in 1945, Gatate pointed out that the five permanent members of the Security Council—China, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Russia—made up almost 50 percent of the world’s population then, but today that figure is just 26 percent.

“While Africa now represents nearly 20 percent of the global population, it is not represented at the G7, whose proportion of the global population is only 9.7 percent. So how do you solve today’s problems with outdated 80-year old structures that do not reflect the global shifts that have occurred?”

Africa has long pushed for a seat on the UN Security Council, calling for the reform of the United Nations in line with the Ezulwini Consensus, agreed in 2022. The Ezulwini Consensus is a position on international relations and UN reform agreed upon by the African Union. Africa wants at least two permanent seats and five non-permanent Security Council seats chosen by the African Union. 

Addressing the third summit of a group of developing countries (G77) in Uganda in January this year, UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres said there is agreement for Africa’s representation on the Security Council.

“So for the first time, I’m hopeful that at least a partial reform of the UN Security Council could be possible for this flagrant injustice to be corrected and for Africa to have at least one permanent member in the Security Council,” Guterres said.

A Green Transition Good for Africa

Highlighting that a productive green finance system in Africa has the potential to generate USD 3 trillion by 2030, Gatete urged that Africa needs to move from ‘potential’ to tangible actions with bankable regional projects.

Innovative instruments like debt-for-nature swaps, regional blue bonds, natural capital accounting, and regional carbon markets can provide financing that addresses debt issues and fosters environmental action, he noted, emphasizing that Africa wants a fair price for carbon trading.

“It does not make sense for African countries to earn less than USD 10 per ton of carbon while countries in Europe earn over USD 100.”

A Call to Change the Global Financial Architecture

It is estimated that Africa spends nearly USD 100 billion on debt repayments annually, forcing many governments to defer investments in social spending on health, education, and food security.

ECA Deputy Executive Secretary and Chief Economist, Hanan Morsy, weighed in, saying there is a need to reduce the debt burden on African countries to enable them to allocate more resources to critical sectors like healthcare and education instead of high debt service costs.

“It is imperative to enhance Africa’s voice and representation, shifting from being rule takers to rule makers,” said Morsy, adding, “This involves bolstering international cooperation on taxation and combating IFFs, including reducing tax evasion and profit shifting.”

Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Monique Nsanzabaganwa, said Africa’s potential to reclaim its long-overdue rightful treatment was materializing as the global landscape took multi-polar shapes and the African Union became a full member of the G20.

“Africa is stronger together,” Nsanzabaganwa said, adding, “I will argue that the value proposition of the African Union is indeed to foster coherence in our strategies and amplify our common voice.”

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Tendayi Westerhof was one of the first celebrities in Zimbabwe to disclose their HIV-positive status.

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Feb 14 2024 (IPS)

UNAIDS Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima, recently made an impassioned call for governments to support women and girls from marginalized communities at the frontlines of the defence of human rights, to help ensure, among others, that global health is protected.

This comes as the latest data from UNAIDS shows that:

• Globally, 46% of all new HIV infections were among women and girls in 2022
• In sub-Saharan Africa, adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) accounted for more than 77% of new infections among young people aged 15–24 years in 2022.
• In sub-Saharan Africa, adolescent girls and young women (aged 15–24 years) were more than three times as likely to acquire HIV than their male peers in 2022.
• Every week, 4000 adolescent girls and young women aged 15–24 years became infected with HIV globally in 2022, with 3100 of these infections occurring in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Only about 42% of districts with high HIV incidence in sub-Saharan Africa had dedicated HIV prevention programmes for adolescent girls and young women in 2021.

Tendayi Westerhof, national director of the PAN-African Positive Women’s Coalition Zimbabwe (PAPWC-ZIM), was one of the first celebrities in Zimbabwe to disclose their HIV-positive status and is one of the most prominent figures in the fight against HIV/AIDS in her country.

IPS spoke to the former model turned HIV activist about defending the rights of people living with HIV and the key role women and girls can play in the AIDS response.

IPS: Do you think that, globally, governments have failed to do enough to support women and girls from marginalized communities who are defending the rights of people living with HIV (PLHIV) and if so, why have they not done enough?

Marking World AIDS Day 2023 in Chinotimba Township, Victoria Falls, Tendayi Westerhof meets Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director, and others from UNAIDS and the National AIDS Council Zimbabwe.

Westerhof: First and foremost is to understand what the rights of people living with HIV are and to ascertain if both women, girls and people living with HIV know their rights. The AIDS response must centre around human rights at every level. PLHIV have the right to treatment access for HIV, they too have sexual and reproductive health rights and are not a homogenous group. It is important to recognize that aspect of diversity among women, girls and PLHIV and ensure that their universal human rights are protected at country level. Laws that criminalize PLHIV and key populations fuel the spread of HIV and AIDS and continue to put the significant many in these groups at risk of HIV, and fuel stigma and discrimination.

IPS: What kind of support should governments or other international bodies be giving to women and girls in marginalised communities who are defending rights for PLHIV?

Westerhof: Women and girls in marginalized communities must be recognized as equal partners in the response to end AIDS and that they too have human rights. They need support in terms of inclusion in leadership and decision-making spaces and not tokenistic appointments. They need both technical and financial resources to effectively defend the rights of PLHIV.

IPS: From your experience as an HIV activist working with PLHIV, why do you think women and girls from marginalised communities specifically should be leading the fight to defend the rights of PLHIV?

Westerhof: I believe in the mantra ”nothing about us without us”.  The Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV (GIPA) principles are clear in calling for the greater and meaningful involvement of people living with HIV in all our diversities.  PLHIV are vectors of the disease but must be seen as equal partners who are bringing the realities of living with HIV to ensure that the planning, design, and implementation of HIV programmes are tailored to address their needs. They are also experts on various aspects [of HIV] especially peer support, issues of treatment literacy/adherence, HIV prevention and awareness, with the main focus being to address stigma and discrimination. 

IPS: As someone living with HIV for a number of years, and an HIV activist, what have been the greatest challenges you have faced in trying to defend the rights of PLHIV?

Westerhof: My greatest challenge has been sometimes working in silos without a collective voice towards defending the rights of PLHIV.  Also limited resources: most defenders are driven to do their work by the experiences they have been through, and by their passion, and end up working as unpaid volunteers. Getting burnt out and sometimes forgetting self-care and other mental health issues. The big issues of inequality, gender-based violence, in particular intimate partner violence, stigma and discrimination. There have been socio-economic challenges, but other challenges of funding and new emerging issues such as climate change, and disasters are shifting the focus from the fight against HIV and AIDS and resources keep dwindling. We are still recovering from the impact of COVID-19 and we need to continue empowering women and adolescent girls with information about HIV/AIDS and other pandemics.

IPS: Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) have a disproportionate risk of acquiring HIV, compared to male peers, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for a number of reasons, including biological, socio-economic, religious, and cultural factors. Some experts have suggested these factors could be addressed through stricter sentences for sexual offenders, economically empowering AGYW, improving the provision of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) education and services to AGYW, and better access to HIV prevention and treatment. But do you think these measures would be enough to significantly reduce the disproportionate risk of acquiring HIV that AGYW face, especially in SSA countries?

Westerhof: A lot is happening in my country to address issues of gender-based violence (GBV), and in particular sexual violence. There is a need to keep bringing GBV matters into the spotlight through the media.  Men’s/boys’ engagement in the response to end all forms of sexual violence must be intensified. Getting to boys at a younger age can help. Making use of our traditional and cultural leaders can also help to reduce GBV. AGYW still remain more vulnerable to HIV and AIDS and GBV than adult boys and young men (ABYM), and there is a need to continue with strategies that protect them.

IPS: Introducing any of the above measures, and ensuring their continued practical implementation would require the support of a number of state institutions, including not just judicial bodies, but health and economic institutions too. Do you have much confidence that these bodies and institutions would ensure that any laws passed, such as stricter sentences for sexual offenders, or guaranteeing better rights and access to HIV treatment for AGYW, would also be properly implemented in practice?

Westerhof: Most countries have these measures and law but the problem is operationalizing them. AGYW need continuous empowerment through these laws, and in how they can report cased of GBV. Victim-friendly courts are there, but sometimes they are not fully utilized. Perpetrators of GBV and sexual violence sometimes walk away scot-free in the absence of compelling evidence beyond reasonable doubt and other factors. Nevertheless, there are many perpetrators of GBV and sexual offences who are behind bars.

IPS: Stigma around HIV continues to play a significant role in fuelling epidemics as it puts many women off seeking treatment or accessing other services for fear their status may be disclosed. What should governments be doing to eliminate this stigma?

Westerhof: In my country the law prohibits stigma and discrimination of PLHIV, including women and AGYW. Also, a national study on stigma was conducted which provides guidance on how to plan, design and implement programs that aim to eliminate stigma and discrimination.

IPS: Do you think your own story as someone who publicly disclosed your HIV status despite the stigma around it at the time, your continued advocacy for PLHIV, and good health, is a good example for women and girls with HIV of the role they can play in helping to eliminate this stigma, and lead healthy, successful lives?

Westerhof: Disclosure helps to break the stigma and discrimination of HIV and AIDS. It encourages others to see that there is still life after a positive HIV test, as living with HIV is today a condition that can be managed with anti-retroviral therapy (ART). PLHIV have continued to play major roles in various communities, such as advocacy for better treatment, care, and support, community mobilization for HIV testing, cervical cancer screening, TB screening and others. Their testimonies have made it easier to make HIV and AIDS a normal  subject and increase the acceptance of PLHIV. My public disclosure of my HIV+ status opened new doors for me.

IPS: You have previously spoken of how important it is that people in local communities are educated about HIV, its treatment and its prevention, and that everyone has access to that education and treatment and prevention services. But in communities where strong patriarchal attitudes are prevalent, and stigma around HIV is high, what measures can be taken to ensure women and girls get that education and access to services?

Westerhof: Community leaders can play a role to ensure that patriarchal attitudes are eliminated. This is an ongoing process whereby people’s attitudes are eventually changed through behaviour change.

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Many unemployed youth in Zimbabwe are taking to gambling to support themselves. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, Jan 24 2024 (IPS)

Twenty years after completing high school in Zimbabwe, 38-year-old Tinago Mukono still has not found employment, and in order to survive, he has switched to betting, turning it into a form of employment.

Every day throughout the week, Mukono leaves his home to join many others like him in betting clubs strewn across Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, with the hope of making it.

With Zimbabwe’s economy underperforming over the past two decades since the government seized white-owned commercial farms, unemployment has stood out as the country’s worst burden.

According to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), over 90 percent of Zimbabweans are jobless.

Such are many, like Mukono, who has desperately found betting to be the panacea.

“I wake up every day to come bet here in town. I do soccer betting, and sometimes I win, but sometimes I also lose, but I keep trying,” Mukono told IPS.

He (Mukono) spoke recently from inside a soccer shop, typically a local betting hall, where other men like him sat with their eyes glued to television and computer screens displaying soccer games, horse races, and dog races.

Littering the floor with betting receipts, many, such as Mukono, closely studied television and computer screens displaying payout dividends and other information gamblers like him hoped would help them bet victoriously.

Yet in the past, betting never used to be popular in this southern African nation, but as economic hardships grew, affecting many like Mukono, betting has become the way to go.

In the past, where it occurred in Zimbabwe, betting was often limited to the state lottery, horse betting, and casinos.

Now, whether they win or lose as they bet, with no survival options, many, like Mukono, find themselves hooked on the vice, which local police have gone on record moving in to quell, with claims that some of the betting clubs are illegal and behind a spate of robberies and money laundering in the country.

Of late, betting clubs have seen a rise in the number of patrons who frequent these places each day from morning until late as people try out their luck, battling for redemption from mounting economic hardships.

Mukono, like many other people involved in betting, said that without a job for years on end, betting for him has turned into a profession.

“I might not be reporting to someone, but for me, this is some form of job because at times I earn money, which feeds my family,” said Mukono.

Rashweat Mukundu, researcher with the International Media Support (IMS), said, “I think there are significantly reduced means or ways upon which young people, especially the youth and young male adults, can survive in Zimbabwe because of the high rate of unemployment and lack of economic opportunities, and so betting and gambling have become a way of survival.”

“So, you see the increasing number of betting houses; you see the increasing numbers of young people who go out to bet. This is a clear indication that the economic fundamentals are off the rails and many people are having to look for ways to survive outside of what you would normally expect such people to be doing,” Mukundu told IPS.

However, economists like Prosper Chitambara see otherwise.

Chitambara, who is the chief economist with the Labor and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ), said: “There are some people who are more predisposed to risk-taking through gambling or betting activities, but mental health conditions and even substance abuse are key drivers of gambling, and of course mental health is also a function of the state of the economy.”

With countrywide economic hardships coupled with unemployment, many, like Mukono, have taken to sports betting in order to raise money for survival.

In fact, across Zimbabwe, local authority halls that used to team with recreational activities have now been converted into betting clubs where gambling thrives, with many, like Mukono, frequenting them in their desperate quest to earn a living.

Meanwhile, there are no stringent rules governing Zimbabwe’s gambling sector, with betting still viewed as a pastime rather than an economic activity.

But with many Zimbabweans like Mukono now taking up betting as employment, betting club employees have a word of advice.

“Honestly, one cannot substitute betting with employment. Surely, it should not be something individuals should opt for to rely on for their economic needs,” Derick Maungwe, one of the staffers at a local betting club in central Harare, told IPS.

But owing to joblessness, said Maungwe, it has become some form of employment for many Zimbabweans.

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Gladys Mugabe (69) lives with her disabled son in Harare Gardens, a well-known recreational park in the Zimbabwean capital. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, Jan 4 2024 (IPS)

It is do or die on the streets of Zimbabwe as homeless families battle for survival solely depending on begging. Such is the life of 69-year-old Gladys Mugabe, who lives with her disabled son in Harare Gardens, a well-known recreational park in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.

Over the decades, Zimbabwe’s economy has underperformed. It started in 2000 with the departure of white commercial farmers, and the country has experienced subsequent periods of hyperinflation, which the International Monetary Fund estimated reached 172% in July last year.

ISS Africa estimates that two out of five Zimbabweans were living in extreme poverty (living on less than US$3.20 per day) in 2019, and although this “poverty rate of nearly 45% is projected to decline to 20% by 2043, 4.7 million Zimbabweans will be living in extreme poverty on the current path.”

Many, like Mugabe, find themselves in their open-air dwellings, and it would seem that being homeless has become a perpetual crisis.

Trynos Munzira, a 43-year-old vendor in Harare, feels that the homeless have moved into the area, making it unsafe for regular people like him to visit the streets and parks.

“People of my age—the 43-year-olds, the 44s—we used to frequent recreational parks, wiling away time, but nowadays it’s impossible because the homeless are all over the parks, contaminating the parks, and there in the parks, they just relieve themselves anywhere,” Munzira told IPS.

Another Harare resident, 33-year-old Nonhlanhla Mandundu, said: “We have suffered because of homeless people who are picking left-over food containers from rubbish bins and leaving these on the streets; they have no toilets because all the toilets in towns are paid for, and so they relieve themselves all over town and urinate anywhere.”

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s countrywide housing shortage is estimated at 1,25 million units, translating to a national backlog of five million citizens, or over 40 percent of the total population.

As such, more than 1.2 million Zimbabweans remain on the government’s national housing waiting list.

But this list is not likely to include everybody, like 21-year-old David Paina, an orphan who fled from his foster parents due to abuse. He moved to the streets for safety.

“I started living here in Harare Gardens in 2012. What drove me here was the abuse I faced living with people who were not my parents. I am just crying for help from well-wishers so that I may do better in life,” Paina told IPS.

Yet authorities in the Zimbabwean regime often don’t address the situation of the homeless.

“I left the housing ministry. I am no longer allowed to talk about such issues,” July Moyo, the current Zimbabwean Minister of Local Government, told IPS.

As authorities like Moyo evade accountability, more than two decades after the land reform program here, homeless families have turned out to be a growing issue in every town and city.

Some teenage parents and their children also find themselves on the streets. Although the method of their relocation varies, they frequently experience eviction, move from door to door, find lodging with family and friends, and eventually end up living on the streets where they don’t need to pay rent.

Baba Ano (19) said he started his family on the streets of Harare not so long ago.

In cold and heat, these homeless families find life tough and uncertain, yet they have no choice except to soldier on.

“I came here in October last year. The rain has been pounding me all this time in the open here. Up to now, I am still living here. I am looking for help with accommodation. I have my son, who is disabled, staying with me,” Mugabe told IPS.

There are no official statistics from the country’s Ministry of Social Welfare documenting the number of homeless families.

Local authorities have acknowledged the homelessness crisis that has gripped many Zimbabweans but don’t seem to have any ready answers.

“It’s true we have a problem of homeless people in Harare—in Harare Gardens, Mabvuku Park, Budiriro, Mufakose, Mabelreign, and several others—all these parks have been taken over by homeless families. People are living in the streets and waking up every day, breaking up water pipes to access water, digging holes on the ground to trap water for bathing, and they bathe right there,” Denford Ngadziore, an opposition Citizens Coalition for Change Ward 16 councilor in Harare, told IPS.

Stanely Gama, the Harare City Council spokesperson, said, “We have homeless people for sure who live in parks like Harare Gardens, Mabelreign, and Africa Unity Square. We always do operations to remove them, but we don’t know where they come from, and each time they are removed, they always come back. This is a case to be better handled by the government’s Social Welfare Department.”

But lack of housing may not be the only factor that has rendered many Zimbabweans homeless, according to human rights activists.

Some may be ex-convicts who struggle to return to society.

“People who stay on the streets or in recreational parks are young children and adults—as young as 10. Some of the homeless adults living on the streets are ex-convicts who could not find acceptance with their relatives back home, forcing them to live on the streets and in recreational parks because they have nowhere to go,” said Peace Hungwe, founder of PeaceHub Zimbabwe, an organization that handles mental health cases in Harare.

While the authorities dither, Mugabe counts her losses.

“Where I used to stay, the plot of land was sold, and my belongings were burned in the house in which I used to live. Nothing was saved of all the things I worked to generate for the past 25 years. I am now just a nobody; the things you see gathered here are my only belongings in this world.”

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29-year-old Proud Mugunhu, a popular Zimbabwean dancer, has mesmerized crowds and onlookers with his dancing skills at events as he gyrates to gather sanitary pads in order to give them to girls and women who are too poor to afford them. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
BULAWAYO, Dec 13 2023 (IPS)

At first, he danced for money, but later on, he realized the need to dance for sanitary pads in order to help poor girls and women. Now, 29-year-old Proud Mugunhu conducts dance tutorials that earn him 100 pads from each session.

Mugunhu started his commercial dancing in Zimbabwe’s Epworth informal settlement east of Harare, the country’s capital, where he said he grew up seeing poor girls and women making do without sanitary pads during menstruation.

Now, Mugunhu, who has turned into a popular dancer, has become famed for combating period poverty.

He (Mugunhu) does not only dance to please onlookers, but has now chosen to dance in order to be rewarded with sanitary pads to pass these on to the girls and women pounded by period poverty.

In and outside Zimbabwe, Mugunhu now dances at events where he has struck deals to receive sanitary pads as payment in his war against rampant poverty.

As a result, his dancing has seen many of the girls and women graduate from using rags to something that gives them dignity and confidence.

“I started dancing in 2015—dancing commercially at weddings. I only began dancing for sanitary pads last year, and I am gathering as many sanitary pads as I can in order to help,” Mugunhu told IPS.

“Growing up in Epworth, I saw a lot in terms of the ravages of poverty, especially on girls. So, what I do is that I conduct dance classes for ordinary people, and I choose to be paid using sanitary pads in order for me to then use these to donate to poor girls and women.”

He claims that he gets more than 100 pads per dancing class that he conducts.

“I just want to help those in need. I’m praying that I will be able to get more sanitary pads so that I will be able to give to many girls and women in need.”

The destitution Mugunhu witnessed as he grew up in Epworth compelled him to dance.

In 2019, Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister, Mthuli Ncube, made a surprise announcement that US$12.5 million had been allocated to acquire sanitary pads for poor rural girls in the country who had reached puberty.

Apparently, the news brought joy to Priscilla Misihairambwi-Mushonga, the then chairperson of Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Primary and Secondary Education.

For many years, she (Misihairambwi) passionately lobbied for the provision of sanitary pads to schoolgirls, while she also made calls for a tax regime that made sanitary wear affordable to every woman in the country.

Whether or not the poor girls eventually received free sanitary pads from the government remains unclear to this day.

But a top government official in Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Women Affairs has claimed that next year they are set to provide sanitary pads free of charge to the country’s poor women and girls.

“Next year, we have plans to work with women who are into sewing to sew reusable sanitary pads, which they will give to girls and women at no cost,” the Chief Director of the Ministry of Women Affairs, Lilian Matsika, told IPS.

With period poverty the norm in poor communities, women’s rights activists like Bridget Mushayahanya called on the government to end the crisis.

“What we want is for our government to understand that menstruation is something that women don’t choose to have. If it were possible, Mushayahanya said, “I would like for our government to work with other regional governments that do ‘pink tanks,’ which means that all items needed by women during menstruation are available for very low prices or free of charge.

Chipo Chikomo, founder of an organization called Nhanga Trust, which manufactures reusable sanitary pads for girls, bemoaned poverty, which she blamed for forcing many to be absent from school during their menstruation.

“We see many girls walking long distances to school; this means that during their monthly menstrual cycles, they don’t then go to school because they won’t have pads to use when they are having menstruation,” she told IPS.

Yet many, like Chikomo, complained of persistent period poverty. For others, like Anna Sande and Sharon Bare, heroic individuals such as Mugunhu stand out as saviors for poor girls and women hammered by period poverty.

Following this year’s elections, at 23 years of age, Sande became Epworth’s youngest mayor, taking charge of a poor local authority where period poverty is common for many.

“I am so grateful for the help I have obtained from Proud Tatenda Mugunhu, who gathers sanitary pads using his dancing talent to help poor girls and women in my community during their monthly periods,” Sande said in an interview with IPS.

Even ordinary Epworth residents like Sharon Bare cannot hide their joy as Mugunhu thwarts period poverty in their midst.

“I really appreciate everything that Mugunhu is doing. I am so proud he is doing a good thing to help poor girls and women get sanitary pads during menstruation,” Bare said.

Peace Hungwe, who is the founder of Peace Hub Zimbabwe, an organization that handles mental health cases in Harare, also showered Mugunhu with praise for his initiative to help poor girls and women surmount period poverty.

“At first, I want to thank Proud. Like his name suggests, he should be proud of himself. There are very few people who do what he is doing. Menstruation is a hard time for many poor girls and women, which leads them into sex work to merely get sanitary pads to use during menstruation,” she told IPS.

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Nurses earn poor salaries in Zimbabwe and often go abroad to work, something which is exacerbating the already poor healthcare system. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
BULAWAYO, ZIMBABWE, Nov 28 2023 (IPS)

A rising Afropop musician, Garikai Mapanzure, popularly known by his stage name Garry, has become the latest high-profile victim of Zimbabwe’s deteriorating health facilities.

Garry, who was 25, died in mid-October after sustaining grave injuries in a horrific accident near his home in Masvingo, 295 kilometres from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

His family blames poor medical equipment after spending hours battling for his life at a government-run Masvingo Provincial Hospital in the same city.

Garry has joined many Zimbabweans who have been losing their lives as a result of a lack of medicine, a shortage of ambulances, and a lack of oxygen supplies.

He left behind his wife and a year-old son.

His family also lost Garry’s friend, a student at Great Zimbabwe University, and a niece, who all died on the spot.

Collapsing Health System 

Speaking at the funeral of the Afropop sensation in Masvingo, Garry’s sister, Kudzai Mapanzure-Chikwanha, said the health system in Zimbabwe failed Garry.

“He held on for 12 hours, but there was nothing in Masvingo,” she said.

Garry suffered from the injuries for 12 hours, while the family was told that there was no computed tomography (CT) scan used to detect injuries inside one’s body.

They also could not fly him to Harare as there were no ambulances with oxygen support on board and no air ambulances.

Mapanzure-Chikwanha pleaded with the government to improve the country’s health system.

“Just one scan could have saved Garry,” she said.

The southern African nation’s health sector has been collapsing for several years now with shortages of health workers, a lack of critical equipment like intensive care unit beds, and shortages of basic drugs, including paracetamol.

Johannes Marisa, president of the Medical and Dental Private Health Practitioners Association of Zimbabwe, tells IPS that Zimbabwe does not meet the World Health Organization’s six building blocks of 2007, which are combined to make a robust health delivery system.

“These include the health workforce, medicines and drugs, health financing, governance, service delivery, and information systems. If a country lacks any one of these building blocks, their health delivery system becomes weak,” he says.

“It is like a house that is held on five pillars instead of the required six. If you look at our Zimbabwean situation, you find the health workforce is in shambles because of brain and health financing, which is poor.”

Zimbabwe’s budget for health care in 2023 fell short of the Abuja Declaration of April 2001, which calls for at least 15 percent of the total budget to be allocated to the health sector.

“We fall short of the Abuja Declaration. This means health financing has never been adequate in Zimbabwe for a time immemorial,” he says.

Marisa says nepotism and cronyism have destroyed the health sector.

“You look at leadership again, or governance. You will find that people who are not competent are running offices. Some people without management qualifications are running big hospitals because of patronage and nepotism,” he says.

Marisa says most hospitals are operating without medicines, drugs, ambulances, and oxygen.

“If you look at the medicines and drugs again, they are not even there. Yet medicines and drugs are part of the six building blocks. We will continue to lose as many people as possible,” he says.

Just a few weeks after Garry’s death, a bus that plies a route from Harare to South Africa was involved in an accident in Masvingo Province.

Those who were injured were taken to Chivi District and Masvingo Provincial Hospital, where they spent several hours without assistance due to a lack of equipment and basic drugs for pain relief, according to eyewitnesses.

Brain Drain 

More than 4000 nurses have left Zimbabwe since 2021, according to the country’s Health Services Board.

Most healthcare workers are leaving for the United Kingdom and the United States.

The number of Zimbabweans granted worker visas increased sharply to 8,363 in September 2022 from 499 in 2019, according to the UK Office of National Statistics.

Zimbabwe’s weak healthcare facilities as well as poor salaries and remunerations are some of the reasons behind the brain drain.

Zimbabwe has only 3,500 doctors for a population of almost 15 million people, according to the Zimbabwe Medical Association.

Itai Rusike, an executive director at the Community Working Group on Health, says the current situation is that the health facilities are not capable of providing basic health care.

“The capacity of public health facilities to screen, diagnose, and manage communicable and non-communicable diseases and conditions has declined to all-time low levels and remains weak in this challenged health delivery system,” he tells IPS.

“These include diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular conditions, injuries, cancer, and mental health through the training of health care workers, procurement of diagnostic equipment and consumables, as well as advocacy towards healthy lifestyles.”

Rusike said the health crisis is compounded by conditions that increase the risk of traumatic injury.

“For example, the state of our roads in Zimbabwe’s road network raises concern, especially when they are further damaged by heavy rains and other climate disasters,” he says.

“Poor roads not only raise the risk of accidents but also mean that ambulances cannot easily access patients in need. During the rainy season, rural roads become even more impassable, making access to emergency services even more difficult.”

Marisa says the poor healthcare system is even affecting the elites with the best medical aid in the country.

“The medical aid societies are giving headaches to medical practitioners. There are so many service providers who are rejecting the best medical aid card holders,” he says.

“This is because no one has confidence in several medical societies operating today. They find excuses for not paying.”

Medical aid societies charge exorbitant prices, which are beyond the reach of many people in the country who are unemployed, while those employed earn paltry salaries.

Private healthcare facilities are expensive and are mainly found in big cities like Harare and Bulawayo.

Rusike says when public emergency care services are not adequately funded, staffed, or provided, it leads to a growth of commercial and privatised services.

“While this is a private sector response to demand and can help to minimise morbidity and mortality, it is not appropriate to rely on the private sector for this service. It leads to inequities in access to health care,” he says.

“The driving force of private provision is maximising profits and not the needs of the most disadvantaged members of society.”

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Women were reduced to cheerleaders in Zimbabwe's recent 2023 general elections. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
BULAWAYO, Nov 6 2023 (IPS)

Zimbabwe’s recent election has exposed weak gender policies both at the political party and governmental levels as women were sidelined despite the fact that they make up more than half of the 6.5 million electorate.

Zimbabwe held its presidential, parliamentary and local municipality elections on August 23 and 24.

Only 22 women were elected for the 210 National Assembly seats out of the 70 women contested against 637 male candidates, according to the Election Resource Centre.

The number of women who contested the National Assembly seats shows a decline compared to the previous election in 2018, where the number of women who competed against men was 14 percent.

In the 2023 election, the total number of women was 11 percent.

The 22 women who were successfully duly elected as Members of Parliament represent a meagre 10 percent of women in the National Assembly, meaning only 30 percent of the women who contested won, according to the Women’s Academy for Leadership and Political Excellence (WALPE).

This figure has fallen from the 25 women, 11.9 percent, who won seats in the 2018 elections.

“There is a lack of political will on the part of our political leaders to promote gender equality,” says WALPE executive director Sitabile Dewa.

“The political environment in Zimbabwe is characterised by violence, patriarchy, fear, harassment and marginalisation of women in electoral processes. These challenges are some of the major impediments to women’s ascendancy to leadership positions at all levels of government within the country.”

Dewa tells IPS that for Zimbabwe to close the gender gap, political party leaders must walk the talk on equality through genuinely and sincerely levelled the electoral field to allow women, young women and women with disabilities to freely, actively and fully participate as both candidates and voters.

A video went viral recently after a Zanu PF campaigner used derogatory names to refer to Judith Tobaiwa, a female candidate for Kwekwe Central, a constituency located 215 kilometres from Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital.

Expensive nomination fees were also a barrier to many aspiring female candidates.

In the 2023 general polls, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission raised the nomination fees beyond the reach of many women who are already disadvantaged economically as compared to their male counterparts in the country.

Presidential candidates paid USD 20,000 while parliamentary candidates parted away with $1000 and $100 for council candidates.

In contrast, in 2018, presidential candidates paid USD 1,000, while legislators paid USD 50.

Linda Masarira of the opposition party Labour, Economists and African Democrats (LEAD) is one of the aspiring presidential candidates who struggled to raise the USD 20,000 nomination fees needed by ZEC this year.

While seats for the National Assembly were shared between CCC and Zanu PF, those from the smaller parties and female candidates who ran as independents failed to win any seats from the plebiscite, showing difficulties outside the main political parties.

All these figures fall short of the 30 percent minimum threshold set out in the 1997 Southern African Development Community (SADC) Declaration on Gender and Development, Zimbabwe’s Constitution, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5, which seeks to promote gender equality and empower all women and girls, according to WAPLE.

In June, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) announced 11 presidential candidates, and there were no women.

Two female presidential candidates, Elisabeth Valerio of United Zimbabwe Alliance (UZA) and Masarira, were blocked by ZEC on petty issues of late payment of nomination fees.

Both female presidential candidates took their matters to court.

Valerio won her case, and ZEC was forced to accept her nomination papers.

But Masarira lost the case.

Incumbent Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu PF) was controversially declared the winner of the hotly disputed contested election with 52.6 percent against his biggest rival Nelson Chamisa of Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) with 44 percent of the vote.

The opposition has since rejected the election as the polls were marred by voter intimidation, ballot paper delays in opposition strongholds like Harare, Bulawayo and some parts of Manicaland Province and rigging by the electoral body in favour of the ruling Zanu PF.

Multiple observer reports, including SADC, declared the elections not credible, not free, and not fair.

The recently reelected leader has appointed just six women out of 26 cabinet positions.

The gender gap is manifesting in Mnangagwa’s appointment of cabinet ministers.

When Mnangagwa announced his cabinet ministers in September, only six were women out of 26 positions, representing 23 percent.

“It is going to be a mammoth task for Zimbabwe to achieve 50/50 gender balance as enshrined in the Constitution,” says Masarira.

She says this is because the country does not have a “Gender Equality Act to operationalise” some sections of the Constitution.

“Secondly, there is selective application of the Constitution by political parties and the government itself, especially when it comes to issues to do with gender balance, gender equality and non-discrimination,” Masarira says.

Kembo Mohadi, the vice president who was forced to resign in 2021 amid a sex scandal, bounced back as Mnangagwa’s deputy.

Alleged recorded calls of Mohadi soliciting sex from married women who are his subordinates were leaked to the local media. Mohadi has not been charged with any sexual offence and has refuted the audio saying he was a victim of a political plot and voice cloning.

“Mr Mnangagwa is obviously not bothered by Mohadi’s sex scandals or anyone for that matter,” says Gladys Hlatywayo, a CCC senior official.

“In fact, we have always known that the sex scandals were never the reason why he was forced to resign and were a mere cover-up to a political motive. The message that Mr Mnangagwa is sending by reappointing Mohadi is that he does not care at all about women’s rights issues,” she tells IPS.

Dewa says Mahadi’s reappointment as Zimbabwe’s Vice President shows that President Mnangagwa is not willing to consider the welfare and well-being of women.

“Mr Mohadi’s re-appointment stinks in the face of justice for all survivors of sexual abuse by men. It is an indictment on the highest office of the land that women’s rights are of no importance,” she says.

“The office of the Vice President demands the highest levels of integrity and moral probity by its occupants.”

The 2013 Zimbabwean Constitution introduced a women’s quota system, setting aside 60 out of 270 parliamentary seats for women.

This proportional representation provision, which was set to expire in 2023, was extended for two additional electoral cycles by an amendment made to the Constitution by Mnangagwa’s regime last year.

Some women prefer these proportional representation seats as compared to the contested ones.

Dewa says there is a need for a complete overhaul of the current electoral system to promote gender equality in politics.

“The electoral voting system must be changed from the first past the post to proportional representation, with a list in zebra format, as this guarantees gender equality. Citizens must vote for political parties, not individuals, as this also insulates women from political violence and vote buying,” she says.

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Tabeth Gowere (76) makes extra cash from weaving plastic waste. A group of seniors started weaving plastic out of a need to improve the environment and make some extra cash. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, Oct 20 2023 (IPS)

They do not have a pension nor financial support from families or relatives, but they have themselves. Now they have become collectors of plastic waste, which they turn into products as they battle for survival – earning money from the growing plastic pollution in Zimbabwe.

Such are the lives of the country’s senior citizens, like 76-year-old Tabeth Gowere and 81-year-old Elizabeth Makufa, both hailing from Harare’s Glenora high-density suburb, where they become famous as plastic waste collectors.

Gowere and Makufa, thanks to plastic waste, now care for themselves financially despite their old age, so they said.

“At first, we saw plastic waste just being flown around by the wind, and we started to pick these, cleaning the environment, burning it, but later realized we could make something out of these plastics and earn money.  So, using plastic waste, we started weaving different things, including mats to decorate sofas. Many people were impressed by our work, and they started placing orders for the plastic products we were making,” Gowere told IPS.

Makufa, like Gowere, has also seen gold in the dumped plastic waste.

“We say this is waste, but from it, we find something that is helping us to sustain us in life. I make 30 US dollars daily at times from selling the products I make from plastic waste, which means at least I get something to survive,” Makufa told IPS.

The young are learning from the lessons from the senior plastic waste entrepreneurs – like 40-year-old Michelle Gowere.

“Weaving things using plastics is a skill I learned from my mother-in-law, Mrs Gowere. We spend time together daily, and because of this, I ended up learning the skill from her; this is helping me to, at least, help my children with food to carry in their lunch boxes when they go to school,” Michelle told IPS.

To Michelle’s mother-in-law and many others, the environment has been the secondary beneficiary of the geriatrics’ initiative collecting plastic waste.

“You would see that in our area, waste collectors from the council rarely come to empty the refuse bins. So, as we use plastic waste to make our products, we are making our environment clean,” Michelle told IPS.

Zimbabwe Environmental Management Agency (EMA) about 1.65 million tonnes of waste are produced annually in Zimbabwe, with plastic making up 18 percent of that.

However, Makufa says it was not the love of money that swayed them into getting into plastic waste but improving the environment.

“It was not because we lacked money that we turned to collecting plastic waste, but we copied some people who were doing it, and we started doing the same. We thought of removing plastic waste from our environment, and we told ourselves if we could take those plastics and weave them together, we could have impressive products that we could sell and earn some money,” Makufa told IPS.

As the group of elderly people are making a difference in collectively fighting plastic waste, the local authorities welcome their contribution but add that it is everybody’s responsibility to care for the environment.

“The job of caring for the environment is not a responsibility of the council alone. In fact, it is the duty of everyone to make sure where they live there is cleanliness. As a council, we thank people who are beginning to realize that there is money in plastic waste. It’s not every waste that should be dumped; there is what we call recycling, and some people make money from it, but the duty to take care of our surroundings is not a prerogative of the council, but ordinary people as well,” Innocent Ruwende, Harare City Council spokesperson, told IPS.

Priscilla Gavi, director of Help Age Zimbabwe, a non-governmental organization mandated to take care of the elderly’s needs, says the elderly, too, are critical in the fight against plastic waste.

“Old age does not make someone incapable of supporting their families and taking care of themselves. It doesn’t stop the aged from working for their country. In fact, old age gives people opportunities to use skills gained during their prime ages, and they, for instance, make use of plastics, producing different things for sale from plastic waste as they also rid the environment of the plastic waste,” Gavi told IPS.

Yet for many like Makufa, collecting plastic waste has also turned out to be therapeutic in addition to being an economic venture.

“These things that we make with our own hands using plastic waste help us to rest from mental stress owing to problems we have these days that strain us psychologically. So, this helps us to be always occupied and refrain from overthinking about things we don’t have control over,” said Makufa.

According to the Environmental Management Agency (EMA), an estimated 1.65 million tonnes of waste are produced annually in Zimbabwe, with plastic making up to 18 percent of that.

Gowere and Makufa and other elderly recyclers and plastic entrepreneurs have drawn the admiration of organizations like EMA.

“This is a commendable initiative that is promoting upcycling of waste and upscaling recycling as a business. This reduces the amount of waste that ends up in landfills and the environment. Plastic waste takes hundreds of years to decompose, and it releases harmful toxins into the environment when burned,” Amkela Sidange, spokesperson for EMA, told IPS.

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