Impact of resilience building interventions in semiarid rural agro-communities: lessons from Mberengwa And Zvishavane Districts in South Eastern Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT

The research sought to examine the impact of resilience building interventions toward rural livelihoods in Mberengwa and Zvishavane Districts. In this research, a mixed method research design was adopted to enhance the quality, complementarity, and expansion of results. Data were gathered using questionnaires, interviews and field observations. Questionnaires were distributed to 200 household heads in Mberengwa and 120 households selected in Zvishavane Districts using convenience sampling technique. Key informants interviewed included Lutheran Development Services representative, Rural District Council representative, District Crop and Livestock Officer (DCLO). The acquired qualitative data were subjected to content analysis while quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS version 23.0. The study findings show that Villages Savings and Lending, water harvesting, community horticultural gardens, apiculture, climate smart agriculture were some of the initiatives contributing to resilience building. These resilience building interventions contributed toward the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals 1; ending hunger, 2; zero hunger; and 13 climate action. The study recommends that the government, through the relevant ministry should ensure resilience building initiatives are included in their five-year plan, so that they have adequate and realistic implementation time frames.

KEYWORDS:

• Communities
• households
• Mberengwa
• resilience building
• Zvishavane

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Additional information

Funding

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Notes on contributors

Tatenda Musasa

Tatenda Musasa is pursuing a phd with the University of the Western Cape South Africa. He is a holder of a Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in Geography and Environmental Studies at Midlands State University, Zimbabwe. He also has a B.Sc. Honours in Geography and Environmental Studies (Midlands State University). For the past few months, he has been involved in teaching and helping undergraduate students to improve their academic writing skills. Tatenda Musasa’s research interest include sustainable natural resources utilization with more focus on wetlands, forest management, safety, health and the environment, food security and rural livelihoods in general. He has been integrating remote sensing, statistics and qualitative techniques in his research.

Mark Makomborero Matsa

Mark Matsa is an associate Proffessor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Midlands State University.He is a holder of a Dphil in Geography, Masters in Geography, Ba Geography with the University of Zimbabwe. His research interests include climate change, biogeography and ecosystems, resilience building,sustainable development.He has been involved in teaching and supervision of both postgraduate and undergraduate students.He has authored more than 2o publications in high impact journals.