Change In Zimbabwe Research Articles

The impact of digital finance on financial inclusion in Zimbabwe

This study looks at how digital finance affects financial inclusion in Zimbabwe. There has been a noticeable change in Zimbabwe's financial services sector with the introduction of digital technology, especially mobile money and digital banking services. The present study investigates the ways in which digital finance initiatives have facilitated the expansion of financial services accessibility, the advancement of financial literacy, and the promotion of economic empowerment among marginalised communities in Zimbabwe. This study offers insights into the potential obstacles related to digital finance in achieving financial inclusion objectives in Zimbabwe through an extensive analysis of current research and empirical data.

Climate change and vulnerable groups in Zimbabwe: Implications for social work practice

Social work is a practical profession that aims to improve problem-solving skills and social functioning, particularly for disadvantaged and marginalised vulnerable groups. The ongoing climate change is worsening the global social work burden since it increases the frequency of occurrence, magnitude, and duration of disaster events such as droughts, heat waves, diseases, tropical cyclones, and floods that negatively impact human beings. Specifically, children, people with disabilities, women, and the elderly are especially vulnerable, as they are often unable to move quickly and may have existing health conditions that make escaping from disasters difficult—meanwhile, the human rights perspective advocates for the inclusivity of all people in the disaster management process. The study used qualitative literature review analysis to explore social work-based strategies for managing the impacts of climate change in Zimbabwe while ensuring the participation of vulnerable groups in co-creating the strategy. The research involved a scoping literature review using African Journals Online, Google Scholar, and ProQuest Central search engines. The study followed specific steps, including formulating the research problem, developing and validating the reviewing protocol, searching for relevant literature using key search terms, screening for inclusion, assessing the relevance, extracting data, analysing and synthesising data, and reporting the findings. Conclusions and recommendations were based on the gaps and inconsistencies identified in the literature review.

Business as usual? Cannabis legalisation and agrarian change in Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT This article examines the emerging legal cannabis sector in Zimbabwe since 2018, which focuses on medicinal and industrial cannabis with unlicenced uses remaining criminalised, as well as its implications for agrarian change. It shows that the formal sector is set up in a way that prioritises those with substantial resources – marginalising small-scale farmers and illicit cultivators. While this presents the risk of corporate capture, various factors combine to undermine agribusiness' production. However, prohibition of recreational cannabis and the formal sector’s focus on export markets combine to preserve illicit cannabis markets and allow continuation of illicit livelihoods.

Climate Change Response Strategies and Implications on Sustainable Development Goals in Mutirikwi River Sub-Catchment of Zimbabwe

Sub-catchment level water sector response strategies to climate change in Zimbabwe have not been adequately analyzed to determine their impact and connectedness with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this study, the mixed methods research design is used to examine the implications of water sector climate change response strategies (CCRS) on SDGs in Mutirikwi sub-catchment in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. Results show that the climate is changing, with a statistically significant (p = 0.031; α = 0.05) increase in the annual mean temperature and a declining rainfall trend, though not statistically significant (p=0.753; α = 0.05). Views from local communities and stakeholders confirm the existence of climate change. There is a deluge of response strategies to the changing climate, including borehole drilling, roof rainwater harvesting, surface storage, water reuse and water transfers. These strategies have directly contributed to the achievement of SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 11 (Sustainable Settlements), and SDG 13 (Climate Action). They have also indirectly contributed to the achievement of SDG 3 (Health), SDG 5 (Gender), SDG 9 (Infrastructure) SDG 12 (Sustainable Consumption) and SDG 15 (Life on Land). The study concludes that there is an inextricable link between CCRS and SDGs. However, implementation of the response strategies is riddled with challenges that are threatening the sustainability matters. There is a need to design community-driven response mechanisms synergized with national and international climate adaptation initiatives to ensure sustainability of the strategies through guaranteed policy and resource support from the national government and non-governmental agencies.

The Impacts of Green Credit Financing on Climate Change in Zimbabwe

The Impacts of Green Credit Financing on Climate Change in Zimbabwe

The Effects of Climate Change on Employment Relations in Zimbabwe

In this article, I focus on climate change in the context of employment relations in Zimbabwe. I seek to establish the relationship between climate change and employment through exploring the impact that climate change has on selected sectors and subsequently on the labour market. The literature reviewed established a link between climate change and employment relations as a significant number of jobs worldwide are dependent on ecosystems. A qualitative research approach was used to gather information relating to key economic sectors affected by climate change in Zimbabwe. The National Employment Councils on the identified sectors were selected using purposive sampling. In this study, I adopt a qualitative research methodology relying on face-to-face interviews with 21 respondents participating from a sample frame of 72 participants. The interview data collected from the respondents were analysed using a thematic approach and coding. The findings of the study indicate that climate change has led to unfavourable working conditions, a decline in productivity, loss of employment and gender disparities at the workplace. Consequently, worker rights and human rights issues arise necessitating the interrogation of the role of trade unions, the labour and climate legislation, related policies and institutions. The article brings out a new dimension in Zimbabwe’s employment relations as climate change issues in employment relations have not yet been fully explored. I recommend an integration of climate change and employment policies to facilitate justification and adaptation strategies which support an environment that is conducive to industrial relations.

Language and Factional Polarity in the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe

This paper explores the role of language in the scientific study of politics. Conceding that politics is naturally an arena of heated disputation, it examines linguistic manifestations of factional polarisation by interpreting words, phrases, and sentences used by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) politicians during the party’s acrimonious splits of 2005 and 2014 and subsequent re-union of 2017. I contend that the use of vituperative, exclusionary and inflammatory language fuelled personality clashes; ethnic chauvinism; sexism; racism; ideological discord and intraparty violence. This often derailed attempts to reconcile the party’s bickering factions.

Ecological and Hydrological Indicators of Climate Change Observed by Dryland Communities of Malipati in Chiredzi, Zimbabwe

Existing evidence about climate change in Zimbabwe has tended to focus more on elements and events of the climate system, marginalizing changes in the hydrological and ecological system. To contribute to the improved understanding of climate change, this study captured the observations of climate change in Malipati, a remote agrarian dryland area in the Chiredzi District, Zimbabwe. The aim of the study was to gather detailed insights about perceived environmental changes using the evidence drawn from local and indigenous populations who have close interactions with their natural environment. A household questionnaire-based survey with randomly chosen farmers (n = 116) revealed that participants’ observations of changes in hydrological and ecological system were consistent with available evidence of increasing temperatures and little rainfall recorded in the district. Results also showed high sensitivity of the area to climate change that manifest in various indicators: hydrological changes in rivers, streams, swamps, and ground water; and ecological changes through the behaviour of trees, insects, birds, and wild animals. Sex and age of the participants did not influence the way they perceived most of these changes (p > 0.05). However, education and the period of stay in the area were related to the respondents’ perceived changes in river flows and siltation, and the conditions of swamps (p < 0.05). Our study also revealed deeper insights about the human-biodiversity interactions in the face of climate change in unique areas where communities live alongside wildlife. The evidence drawn from local and indigenous populations can be used to inform local-based solutions to the growing problems of climate change and biodiversity loss. Future studies would need to further examine such areas to understand the mitigation and adaptation practices that would promote the sustainable co-existence of humans and wildlife.

Exploring Humanitarian response strategies in the aftermath of disasters induced by climate change in Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT This study explored the humanitarian responses to the scourges of climate change-related disasters in the Chimanimani district of Zimbabwe in southern Africa. This is against the backdrop of climate-induced disasters that have plagued the region before, with some of its consequences visible in the present day. Eleven humanitarian organisations that can aid victims of Cyclone Idai in 2019 were selected through purposive and convenience sampling. In-depth interviews were used to collect data. Also, data from which the findings were derived were analysed in terms of their thematic content. The study established that there was a commendable response from humanitarian organisations in addressing the destructive consequences of the cyclone. Some of the response strategies included the provision of food and non-food items, psychosocial support and counselling services, the protection of women and girls from abuse, reconstruction, and rehabilitation of infrastructure. We recommend that humanitarian organisations need to strengthen their disaster preparedness strategies in anticipation of unpredicted and potential destructive effects of climate change that place human lives and livelihoods at great risk.

Robust Responses to the Impact of Climate Change in Zimbabwe: Social Work’s Contribution

It has become important that social work confronts environmental challenges associated with climate change. Environmental social work is an approach to social work practice founded on ecological justice principles. A literature review was conducted to analyse social work’s contribution to robust responses to the impact of climate change in Zimbabwe. Despite an enabling legal and policy environment, the degradation of natural resources has become pervasive owing to Zimbabwe’s socio-economic dynamics. Institutions such as the Council of Social Workers Zimbabwe (Council of Social Workers), and the National Association of Social Workers Zimbabwe complemented by the four universities that offer social work training are found to contribute to social work when mitigating the impact of climate change in Zimbabwe. These strategies enrich social work’s responses to the challenges of climate change and environmental degradation. This is achievable by engaging in research opportunities of applied action that explore communities’ public and social spaces. The article concludes by offering pathways for more proactive social work contributions towards mitigating climate change impacts in Zimbabwe.

Adapting peri-urban agriculture to climate change in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe: A qualitative assessment

Peri-urban agriculture plays a critical role in sustaining food security and livelihoods in urban communities. In spite of the critical role it plays in food security, peri-urban agriculture has not received adequate attention with regards to its interface with climate change in Zimbabwe. Using a sample of thirty peri-urban plots selected through snowballing, this study investigated the farmers’ perceived effects of climate change on peri-urban agriculture in Bulawayo, and how farmers were adapting to climate change. The findings of the study revealed that peri-urban farmers perceived and observed significant climatic and related changes that were negatively impacting their farming activities. Observed changes included reduced precipitation levels, increased atmospheric temperature and diminishing borehole yields. Farmers were adapting with a variety of methods which included repeated planting, watering plants during the night, renting animal space in other farms with more water sources and purchasing supplementary feed for livestock. Among other issues, this study recommends the promotion of the use of drought tolerant seed varieties, improved water harvesting and a more rationalised system in managing livestock numbers in the plots.

Post Mugabe Era and Feasibility of Regime Change in Zimbabwe

Barely a year after Zimbabwe’s long serving President Robert Mugabe was ousted through a military coup which replaced him with his erstwhile trusted ally and vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa, the army shot six civilians caught up in the crossfire of protestors alleging ZANU PF electoral theft of the 2018 July 30 polls. Although the military has always been in the background of Zimbabwe’s politics in general and the ruling ZANU PF affairs in particular, the shooting of protestors incident which occurred on the 1st of August 2018 left the world shell-shocked on the prospects of any peaceful change of government or even transfer of power, confirming to all and sundry that Mugabe could have exited the political stage, but the system he presided over for 37 years is still intact, if not even more perfected in the aftermath. This has since rekindled debates on the feasibility of regime change in Zimbabwe and in that context the validity and essence of having an election in the first place if any outcome unfavourable to ZANU PF and its candidate is likely to witness the unleashing of armed soldiers and the subsequent killing of citizens in the process. With the security sector involved in politics in contrast to the old adage that politics lead the gun, it thus comes as a paradox that for the umpteenth time, regime change in Zimbabwe shall remain an elusive dream.

Constitutional referendums and the media in Africa: Reporting the aborted referendum in Tanzania – 2015

The article involves three main topics. The first deals with the role of referendums in relation to constitutional processes, and how they have become increasingly common, with a focus on African developments. The second topic is a description of the referendums in relation to the media coverage of the rejected constitutional change in Zimbabwe in 2000 and in Kenya 2005, and with subsequent elections in both countries shortly after, and then the referendums that accepted constitutional change years later. The last part of the article is an analysis of coverage in the Tanzanian press of the constitutional debate before the aborted referendum in 2015, followed by some comparative reflections on the relationship between referendum and election reporting.

A drive to regime change through nonviolent economic warfare: The post-Mugabe era, 2017–2019

ABSTRACT This article examines efforts made by the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance to bring about regime change through nonviolent economic warfare including its subsequent failure. The 30 July 2018 harmonised elections in Zimbabwe led to a victory by Emmerson Mnangagwa but it was disputed by Nelson Chamisa. Since August 2018, the political opposition led by Chamisa sought to make the country ungovernable by waging a nonviolent economic war nicknamed Kuzvidira jecha (pouring sand) against the Mnangagwa administration. This was punctuated by price hikes, fluctuation of the local currency, artificial food stuff price hikes and fuel shortages which caused serious challenges for most Zimbabweans. This was primarily intended to bring about regime change via public unrest against the Mnangagwa regime. On the contrary, the anticipated public uproar failed to foster regime change in Zimbabwe despite widespread adverse socio-economic effects. This led to the nonviolent participants resorting to violent tactics instead of adhering to nonviolence. Consequently, it was the failure to adhere to nonviolent principles by opposition advocates which forced the Mnangagwa regime to deploy its own instruments of violence in an effort to protect lives and property.

Harnessing local traditional authorities as a potential strategy to combat the vagaries of climate change in Zimbabwe.

While the devastating vagaries of climate change are ravaging communities the world over, especially in Africa, and Zimbabwe in particular, the role of traditional authorities is being overlooked. This paper argues for a relentless push towards the unimpeded involvement of local traditional authorities (LTAs) in the mobilisation of rural communities to adopt appropriate climate change adaptation practices in Zimbabwe. Given its complexity and uniqueness, external intervention through government and non-governmental agents alone can hardly foster climate change adaptation particularly at local levels within communities. Traditional leaders, who have for a long time been useful in the governance of people in various rural communities, can play a supportive role in climate change adaptation. Traditional leaders do not only serve as governance authorities but also know the traditional strategies of combating the negative effects of climate change. Despite the pressure from political interference and the advent of western technological advancement, a lot could still be done to buttress the authority and respect vested in chiefs, headsmen and village heads in the country. LTAs have the power to manage grassroots communities; hence they can be utilised as drivers in the use of traditional climate change adaptation strategies. The paper concludes that political interference is one challenge faced by abusing traditional leadership as a means to gain political mileage. The paper recommends for extended capacity building on the part of traditional leaders to improve their knowledge base. This will enable them to appreciate the integration of indigenous and modern climate change adaptation strategies. It further recommends the revitalisation of the traditional council (Dare raMambo) to deal with environmental offenses with the scope of assisting government efforts to ensure sound ecological practices within communities.

Understanding adaptation to climate variability in smallholder farming systems in eastern Zimbabwe: a sociological perspective

The literature on climate change in Zimbabwe continues to grow, but literature specifically focusing on how people in rural communities are responding to it is still comparatively limited. Only a few scholars have sought to offer a reasonably detailed account of farmers’ concerns and adaptation from localised, qualitative case studies based on farmers’ narratives. As such, this article is empirically based, using mainly qualitative data from a broader research on understanding climate variability and livelihood adaptation conducted in Mutoko District in rural Zimbabwe. In doing so, the aim is not only to contribute empirical data to existing knowledge but also more importantly to theorise adaptation sociologically. The main argument is that farmers are reflexively engaged in various adaptive strategies predominantly at the household level not only to adapt to increasing climatic variability but also to simultaneously navigate a difficult socio-economic landscape. The adaptive strategies are underpinned by diverse structures, processes and conditions that are enabling and constraining. Hence adaptation is unfolding as a complex and reflexive process under specific socio-spatial conditions.

Tobacco, contract farming, and agrarian change in Zimbabwe

AbstractThe growth of smallholder tobacco production since 2000 has been one of the big stories of Zimbabwe's post–land reform experience. Yet the implications for agrarian change, and the consequences for new relations between farmers, the state, and agribusiness capital have rarely been discussed. The paper reports on work carried out in the Mvurwi area of Mazowe district in Zimbabwe with a sample of 220 A1 (smallholder) farmers and 100 former farmworkers resident in compounds on the same farms. By going beyond a focus on operational and business dimensions of contract farming, the paper concludes with reflections on the implications for understanding agrarian relations and social differentiation in those areas of Zimbabwe where tobacco growing is now significant, with lessons more broadly on the political economy of contract farming, and the integration of agribusiness capital following land reform.

Setting the record straight: Tsvangirai’s memoir At the Deep End as a rival narrative

In this paper, an argument is put forward that through literary and political patronage Morgan Tsvangirai constructed a life narrative that is meant to challenge the ZANU-PF hegemonic discourse of demonisation that presents and depicts him as a political puppet to the British whose agenda is to effect regime change in Zimbabwe. He thus makes use of the book as a political and literary tool to set the record straight. It is further argued that different narrative strategies such as modesty topos, blended voices and historical archiving are used to position Tsvangirai as a political messiah in Zimbabwe, whose involvement in politics was not by accident but a fulfilment of his destiny, cause and calling. Therefore, memoir writing is seen more as an act of defiance and personal archiving for political gain than an interest in one’s personal history. Personal history is instead made to replace national history. The self is the nation and his story is the story of the nation.

Pushing the limits of motherhood: Narratives of older women in rural Zimbabwe

ABSTRACTDrawing on narratives of rurally-based Zimbabwean older women, this article analyses experiences of motherhood in relation to the country’s shifting economic and socio-political landscapes. The narratives of these older women, who have nurtured their children and continue to do so way into (their children’s) adulthood, push scholars to grapple with questions of motherhood in respect of ‘intensive mothering’. Intensive mothering points at the exclusivity of motherhood which frames the responsibility to provide and care for the children during their formative years as virtually the mother’s. Older women in this article are second and third generation mothers whose narratives challenge constructions of motherhood which limit intensive mothering to the formative stages of children’s lifecycle. The narratives raise questions like ‘when does a woman cease to be a hands-on mother who vigorously provides for her adult children?’ Such questions are a way into existential and contextual realities of ageing in rural Zimbabwe. Contextual-based analyses explore the interaction between motherhood, socioeconomic and political change in Zimbabwe through language that assigns meaning to motherhood, ageing, and the state. Overall, the article offers the reader insight into how questions of motherhood, ageing, and the state might affect women located within equally volatile contexts across the globe.

Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies (ZIDS): The Early Context of Sam Moyo’s Intellectual Development

One of the key sites of Sam Moyo’s early intellectual development was the Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies (ZIDS). Established by the newly independent Zimbabwean government in the early 1980s to provide an alternative intellectual space for considering socialist policy alternatives, the Institute was subject both to the opportunities and to challenges of state politics. In his work at ZIDS, Sam drew on a long history of radical political economy studies on Zimbabwe, as well radical Africanist thought to pursue his seminal work in agrarian studies. In the midst of a highly contested fast-track land reform programme, Sam led the way in understanding not only the economic challenges of the programme but also the opportunities that it opened up to move beyond the unequal legacies of the settler-colonial agrarian political economy. However, while Sam pioneered the study of the changing forms of agrarian production relations in the 2000s, he focused less on the changing forms of political rule in the country. Into this space, a rich literature from different disciplinary frameworks has emerged and expanded the debate on agrarian and political change in Zimbabwe.