Climate change is a global problem requiring global responses, encompassing North and South, East and West, local and regional communities, the public and private sectors and industrialised and developing nations.
Ranging from global, governmental negotiations to individual choices, a multiplicity of actions, reactions, range of human activities, projects and programmes affect, and combine to become, this issue. It should be mentioned at the outset, however, that the bulk of present trend climate changes have been shown to be stimulated by economic and social activities in the developed nations rather than the developing.
Zimbabwe lies in a tropical region with a limited and unreliable rainfall pattern, as shown in Figure 1. Zimbabwe is vulnerable to climate change principally through shifting rainfall and extreme events. Social, economic and political configurations affecting human settlements, agricultural patterns and natural resources such as water, vegetation and forestry, combine to make climate impacts a threat to the development of the country. Drought already affects water supplies, agriculture and access to food which impact negatively on basic health and survival. Zimbabwe is also vulnerable to having a perennially high number of malaria cases. Climate adaptation measures are required to reduce the negative economic and social impacts due to these factors, the main drivers of which are located in prevailing social, economic and political institutions and processes.
The history, lifestyle and economic foundation of Zimbabwe is rooted in and around land and landuse for agriculture. Because climate change could negatively impact this sector and thus the achievement of Zimbabwe’s social and developmental goals, the country has a need to be more aware, concerned and informed about possible future climate changes and the effects on its people and economy.
In Zimbabwe’s Initial National Communications under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), likely impacts in Zimbabwe caused by present trends in climate change include:
- increased water demand for irrigation due to the doubling of CO2 concentration, resulting in increased evapotranspiration
- a decrease by approximately 30–40 per cent in water yield per dam
- worsening water supply/demand for both industrial and agricultural purposes
- reduced generation of electricity at Kariba hydropower station
- reduced biodiversity and inflow of tourists
- an impact on food security, especially maize, the staple food
- an impact on agriculture-based manufacturing industries
- an impact on health, especially malaria and nutrition.
Poverty is a main driver in causing unsustainable farming, grazing and wood-fuel gathering that have led to dryland degradation and desert encroachment. Climate change is likely to exacerbate these trends, as increasing temperatures will bring unpredictable precipitation patterns leading to more parched and dry conditions and a possible increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as cyclones. Reducing the vulnerability of dryland communities to more climate change will require measures that diversify livelihood options, reduce pressure on natural resources and restore and protect dryland ecosystems.
This case study examines how a small group of villages, the Tongwe Community Group, who live in the Mtetengwe area, Ward 4, Beitbridge district, have chosen livelihood diversification strategies as a way of increasing their resilience to the pattern of drought and unpredictable events, in this case a cyclone. The Tongwe Group was selected for the case study because their work with drought management and poverty alleviation is set against a background of drought and an extreme event, a cyclone, that washed away irrigation-related infrastructure that had not been “climate proofed”; situations that might be expected to be more common with climate change. Rather than trying to rebuild the irrigation infrastructure, the Tongwe Group chose to diversify income-generating livelihoods instead as a way of better coping with drought conditions. They also switched from maize, which is difficult to grow in persistent drought conditions, to drought-tolerant and pest-resistant sorghum seed. A key part of their success lies in establishing new community institutions endowed with legal personality. These enable the community to receive, manage and utilise external funds with ease in a timely fashion without intermediaries. Because maize is a stable crop for over 95 per cent of Zimbabwe’s 11 million people, the strategies used by the Tongwe Group may have a broader relevance within Zimbabwe and for other African countries.
Section 2 of this case study provides background information on Zimbabwe, on the expected impacts generated by climate models and on the political and institutional arrangements drawing on information provided from other sources (Moyo et al. 1993; Matarira et al. 1996; UNEP 2004; UNDP and GEF 2004). Section 3 sets outs the drought- and cyclonerelated adaptation activities of the Tongwe Group. Section 4 sets out recommendations and conclusions about the wider significance of the case study.
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This article comes from the IDS Bulletin 36.4 (2005) Climate Proofing Infrastructure and Diversifying Livelihoods in Zimbabwe
