Zimbabwe

Women’s leadership can strengthen resilience to climate change

By Everjoice Win, International director of programmes and global engagement at Action Aid International

Last year, the planet suffered the terrible impacts of one of the worst drought and hunger crises seen for decades. At the end of 2015, 30 percent of the global land area was in drought conditions, one of the highest figures since modern record keeping began.

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Résumé

Highlights:

Improved maize supplies drove national maize and maize meal prices further down in July in all the monitored countries except South Africa (SA) where prices increased by roughly 6 percent. Moreover, national prices were considerably below their respective 5 year aver-age (5YA) except Tanzania, Lesotho and Swaziland.

Summary

A summary of the learnings and recommendations from an internal and external evaluation of the Emergency Cash-First Response to Drought-Affected Communities in the Southern Provinces of Zimbabwe project which was carried out from August 2015 to May 2017.This programme is the first time that cash transfers have been used as a large-scale alternative to food aid in Zimbabwe and the first large-scale provision of cash transfers through mobile money.

This case study of the first large-scale humanitarian cash programme in Zimbabwe presents learning and recommendations on how to design and adapt cash transfer programmes to mitigate the risk of a cash liquidity crisis.

The study explores how the programme, which delivered cash through mobile money, coped with a national cash liquidity crisis. Mobile money proved to be a highly flexible way to deliver cash during a liquidity crisis, given its option for e-purchasing, which enabled continued access to food.

This case study explores the partnership between CARE International and World Vision with two mobile network operators to deliver the first humanitarian cash transfer programme to be carried out on a large scale in Zimbabwe.

The study investigates:

Vulindela Mpofu

Note de l'auteur Cet article fait partie d’un projet spécial traitant des conséquences du changement climatique sur la sécurité alimentaire et sur les moyens de subsistance des petits paysans au Kenya, au Nigeria, au Sénégal et au Zimbabwe

HARARE, 14 septembre 2017

Mon frère est un agriculteur zimbabwéen qui s’en sortait plutôt bien, mais c’est aujourd’hui un homme inquiet. La saison dernière, un nuisible vorace a englouti une bonne partie de son maïs et il craint le pire pour la prochaine saison de croissance, qui commence en novembre.

Fall armyworm, or FAW, is new to Africa but has made an immediate impact. The caterpillar, originally from Latin America, was first detected in Nigeria in January 2016. By January 2017 it had reached South Africa – spreading officially to 24 countries within a year on a lightening journey down the continent.

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Highlights

• The 2017 ZimVAC Rural Livelihoods Assessment estimates that 1.1 million people will be food insecure by the first quarter of 2018. All indicators of nutrition and food security have improved in the midst of a 321 percent increase in food crop production compared to last year, although some districts will have high food insecurity projections estimated at 27 percent.

• In July, WFP supported 89,585 people in 11 districts under the Productive Asset Creation Programme.

Document Overview

By Rachel Bergen

Sept. 14, 2017

MCC is known for supporting access to education around the globe by paying school fees, supporting vocational training and providing school supplies. What you might not know is that MCC also works with its partners to improve the quality of education that is offered.

From teacher training to involving the community in school management, here are some examples of partners creatively improving education:

Teacher training

ZIMBABWE is entering an unpredictable terrain laden with potential for progression and regression in the political, social and economic sphere. Replete with history of violence during such political transitions, there are already worrying signs of potential violence. The Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) has been monitoring and documenting reports and incidents from January 2017. These reports and incidents suggest that there are tensions within the country at various levels centred on the political, social and economic state of the country.

The Regional Immunization Technical Advisory Group (RITAG) met in Brazzaville, Congo at the Hotel Ledger from 16th to 17th June 2017 for its first ordinary meeting of the year. Dr Joseph Cabore the Director, Programme Management, WHO AFRO, welcomed the participants on behalf of the Regional Director, Dr Matshidiso Moeti. He also declared the meeting open.

This brief summarizes FEWS NET’s most forward-looking analysis of projected emergency food assistance needs in FEWS NET coverage countries. The projected size of each country’s acutely food insecure population (IPC Phase 3 and higher) is compared to last year and the recent five-year average and categorized as Higher (p), Similar (u), or Lower (q). Countries where external emergency food assistance needs are anticipated are identified. Projected lean season months highlighted in red indicate either an early start or an extension to the typical lean season.

Natural disasters over the first semester of 2017

During the first semester of 2017, EM-DAT preliminary data shows that 149 disasters occurred in 73 countries. The impact of which resulted in 3,162 deaths, affected more than 80 million people and caused more than US$32.4 billion (A).

The major disasters were floods and landslides occurring in Asia, South America and Africa (B).

With worsening droughts drying fields and hydropower, solar energy is providing a way forward in rural areas.

By Tonderayi Mukeredzi

MASHABA, Zimbabwe, Sept 11 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Until recently, farmers in this town in southern Zimbabwe struggled to water their crops, frustrated by poor rainfall and the regular breakdown of the diesel engines that powered their irrigation systems.