The growth of urban agriculture in Zimbabwe has been phenomenal. Every space seems to be cultivated, with a huge array of crops. Today you see tractors, irrigation pumps, trucks carrying produce to markets, with significant investments in commercialised agriculture happening … Continue reading → …
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ZimbabweLand
How to respond to ‘drought’: rethinking standard approaches
Over the last four weeks, a blog series has asked what is the best way to respond to ‘drought’? This is an important question for a country like Zimbabwe, and with climate change the question will become even more important. … Continue reading → …
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Rethinking disaster responses: from risk to uncertainty
Previous blogs in this series have highlighted how farmers’ responses to ‘drought’ are focused on adaptive adjustments to farming and livelihood practices that unfold as a ‘performance’. A drought is not a single event, but emerges over time, and responses … Continue reading → …
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Insuring against disaster: the politics of protection
One of the most popular responses to drought – and disasters more generally – by aid agencies today is insurance. This fits the current development mood, requiring market-based solutions that operate at a distance and work seemingly ‘efficiently’, offsetting the … Continue reading → …
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Farming with variability: mobilising responses to drought uncertainties in Zimbabwe
Climate change is generating greater variability within and across seasons. This is requiring new responses among farmers in Masvingo province in Zimbabwe. Today, farmers must adapt, be flexible and agile and respond to uncertain seasons as they unfold. This requires … Continue reading → …
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What is drought? Local constructions, diverse perceptions
There is a huge government and aid machinery to respond to ‘drought’ in Zimbabwe. Humanitarian relief, cash-plus transfer schemes, shock-responsive aid, anticipatory action, insurance products, climate-smart development and much, much more, with millions of dollars spent. But what is ‘drought’, … Continue reading → …
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Contested conservancies: livestock, wildlife and people in Laikipia, Kenya
To complement the recent series of blogs on conservation and development issues in the southeast Lowveld of Zimbabwe, I thought readers might be interested in a recent piece I wrote for the PASTRES blog based on a visit to Laikipia … Continue reading → …
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Conservation conflicts: land use in Zimbabwe’s Lowveld
The conservation of biodiversity in places where people also live and farm is not straightforward. The last three blogs have offered some perspectives on the dilemmas faced in the southeast Lowveld of Zimbabwe, and this blog offers an overview. The … Continue reading → …
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Failing institutions: the challenge of governing natural resources in Zimbabwe
The much-lauded book, Why Nations Fail, argued that sustained economic progress only occurs when institutions work. This means enforcement of legal rules, clear secure access to land, regulations that are transparent, bureaucracies that function and of course – emerging out … Continue reading → …
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Protected areas: national assets or shared heritage?
What are the roles of protected areas in national development? Are parks national, even global, assets preserved for posterity and for protecting biodiversity, or are they part of a shared, local heritage, where nature and human use must be seen … Continue reading → …
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