Moving forward in Zimbabwe - Brooks World Poverty Institute - The ...

Moving forward in Zimbabwe
Reducing poverty and promoting growth
enforcement of all environmental planning and conservation bylaws
on behalf of the chief, the district councils and the state.
Local environment and development non-governmental
organisations
Zimbabwe has a number of environment and development
programmes being spearheaded by NGOs, such as Environment
Africa, Southern Alliance for Indigenous Resources, Communal
Areas Management Programme For Indigenous Resources
(CAMPFIRE) Association, Africa 2000, Zambezi Society and
Wildlife and Environment Society that continue to be active despite
the current crisis and its accompanying challenges, including
draconian restrictive legislation. These NGOs work mainly in
the districts at local level and have adapted their operations to
suit local conditions. Often, environmental components are offshoots
of poverty reduction and livelihoods programmes. As one
environmental NGO director put it, ‘We concentrate on food and
livelihoods first and then environment comes later as a spin-off
of our work’. The environmental NGOs partner district councils
and government environmental agencies, such as the Forestry
Commission, AREX, the Environmental Management Agency and
Parks and Wildlife Authority. Environmental NGOs have a variety
of community programmes, including recycling, tree nurseries,
natural product enterprises, herb and nutrition gardens and training,
and capacity building. Some local environmental NGOs are
partnering with schools and colleges to spearhead environmental
awareness and environmental education. For example, as part of
their holistic approach to sustainable development, Environment
Africa has initiated and supported for more than ten years the
Policy and Environmental Management for Schools programme.
In the following section we consider how Zimbabwe has engaged
with the international environment agenda before looking at the
local initiatives.
International sustainable development initiatives and the
crisis
Zimbabwe participates in the international sustainable development
arena and has espoused a number of internationally-inspired
initiatives which come with funding and support. However, despite
this long and close relationship at policy level that saw, for example,
the Zimbabwean Minister of Environment and Tourism being
elected chair of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable
Development, nothing substantial or sustainable has materialised
on the ground. Local-level natural resource managers have
benefited little if at all from the various international initiatives.
On the other hand, locally-inspired environment and development
programmes have proved to be more effective. For example,
institutions created through CAMPFIRE, considered one of the
pioneer initiatives in the devolution process, remain resilient even
amid current challenges.
The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)
Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism prepared a
Report to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)
in Johannesburg in 2002 detailing Zimbabwe’s progress since
the UNCED Rio Earth Summit of 1992. After WSSD, through
extensive consultation and funding from UNDP, a national
response to the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation was
prepared. Multi-sectoral stakeholders at national, provincial and
district levels prioritised key issues and challenges for sustainable
development. The culmination of this consultation process was
a draft national action plan for sustainable development, which
pays particular attention to integrated land management as the
key to addressing poverty in Zimbabwe (Mutepfa and Marongwe,
2005). Copies of the national plan have been distributed to all
provinces, but due to lack of funds it has not been implemented
and has subsequently been shelved. Recent enquiries revealed that
the WSSD has been largely forgotten by local implementers. On
a policy level, the WSSD strategies have been replaced by a newer
sustainable development initiative, namely the Environment and
Energy Programme which is being implemented with funding
from UNDP. The various components of this programme include
water pricing, renewable energy and water and land issues. In
addition to UNCED’s Agenda 21 and WSSD, Zimbabwe also
participates in a plethora of other international environment and
development initiatives such as the Framework Convention on
Climate Change, the Convention to Combat Desertification and
the Convention on Biological Diversity. Often these programmes
are parallel processes, with different funders and conditionalities,
and any interface between the emerging processes and initiatives
is usually lacking. An opportunity for Zimbabwe’s environment
sector would be harmonisation of these international initiatives
so as to avoid duplication and to maximise benefits for nationally
identified priorities.
Millennium Development Goals
Zimbabwe has also adopted the MDGs as a planning framework
for a strategy to achieve sustainable development. The initiative is
being spearheaded by the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare.
National time-bound targets and indicators for the eight goals were
set through a consultative process. Zimbabwe’s priorities under
MDG One: Eradicate Poverty and Hunger, include the need to
consolidate land reform into agrarian reform that embraces issues
of productive resources, provision of inputs, market access and
infrastructure. However, little progress has been made on Goal One
in reducing poverty. On MDG Seven: Ensuring Environmental
Sustainability, again not much progress has been made due to the
lack of capacity to gather data and limited statistical tracking of
environmental data due to weak technical and financial resources
(Mutepfa and Marongwe, 2005). A number of other assessments
and studies, including satellite imagery, indicate land degradation is
accelerating, particularly through deforestation and loss of biomass.
According to Yale University’s 2008 environmental performance
index, which ranks 149 countries according to a weighting of
carbon and sulphur emissions, water purity and conservation
practices, Zimbabwe was positioned at 95, thus highlighting the
bleak state of the environment in the country.
Trans-boundary natural resource management
Trans-boundary natural resource management is a process of
cooperation across national boundaries that aims to enhance
the management of shared or adjacent natural resources to
the benefit of all parties in the area. In reality, local people have
generally been left out of the planning processes. There has
been a massive channelling of funds into trans-boundary natural
resource management initiatives in the southern African region
by a variety of donors, notably the World Bank, United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) and the German
Development Bank. Zimbabwe is involved in a number of trans-
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