Conquering climate change: lessons from Zimbabwe
Ahead of the world’s biggest climate change conference, COP22, African leaders call for practical, successful and scalable examples on how to increase water security. The event will bring together world leaders to discuss how to turn commitments, agreed at COP21 last year, into action, to keep global temperature rise under 2°C. For Africa, focus is fixed on implementation of adaptation programmes for the poor majority. The Climate Resilient Infrastructure Development Facility (CRIDF), funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), implements climate resilient water infrastructure to improve peoples’ livelihoods in southern Africa.
Leonard Magara, CRIDF’s Chief Engineer, and Rebecca Ann Brooks CRIDF’s Climate Finance Manager, take a closer look at the driving factors behind the success of a CRIDF project in Zimbabwe’s Masvingo Province.
October is Food Security Month: Saturday 15th is Rural Women’s Day, Sunday 16th is World Food Day and Monday 17th is International Day of Poverty Alleviation. Investment in water and food security works as a buffer against hunger and poverty. Subsistence farmers in rural Zimbabwe, like most in sub-Saharan Africa, need transformation to realise their potential to generate income and improve their livelihoods. In Mawoneke Village, Catherine waters her crops by collecting water from the river because there are no functioning irrigation systems which pump water from rivers to farmers’ fields.
Infrastructure investments: Supplying water needs investments in infrastructure. It also requires quality design to withstand the impacts of climate change. This involves conducting water assessments to improve supply assurance in light of climate change impacts, such as droughts and floods, and community needs. This information impacts irrigation system design. For example, this determines the need and location of small dams and design of appropriate water and energy efficient irrigation networks.
Profit potential: With a continuous supply of water, communities can grow their crops better all year round, benefit from advanced planning, and with surplus production, begin to grow crops for profit, not only subsistence.
Building institutions: Community institutions need to be supported to make sure they are able to operate and maintain the infrastructure independently. One way of doing this is supporting the set-up of a ‘maintenance fund’. All members of the community who benefit from the irrigation scheme contribute to a fund to pay for communal infrastructure and equipment which may need replacing over time, or for its upkeep.
Electrifying potential: To provide pumping power, PV solar panels that covert sunlight into electricity are used. Not only does solar have minimal maintenance costs in comparison to diesel generators, solar energy has mitigation co-benefits, in the form of less carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere when compared to the standard means of generating electricity in the region.
Support to hospitals: Surplus electricity can be used to fuel hospital services. The Bikita Rural Hospital serves hundreds of people in the local community, including pregnant women, HIV patients and young children. The benefits of solar in a hospital are vast: essential services are not disrupted, thereby saving lives, medicines can be correctly stored and looked after, important documents can be kept on electronic file and servers and other hospital equipment can be kept running.
Educating on sanitation: Water supply also helps to instill good sanitation practices in a community, supporting much greater health benefits. In Mawoneke Village, a grandmother teaches her grandchildren to wash their hands, bathe properly and how to use functioning water-supplied toilets. She discusses the importance of how this reduces diseases by limiting open defecation and the spread of germs, supports good cleanliness and contributes to improved community well-being.
Business seeds planted: As communities begin to grow surplus and more reliable produce as a result of continuous water supply, they are also supported to start businesses to independently improve their income security overtime. Such support includes strengthening farmers’ linkages to markets through contract farming and supporting government extension services.
Focus on women: 70% of farmers in Zimbabwe are women. Women are thus disproportionately affected by climate change because the majority of farmers whose livelihoods are heavily dependent on water supply are women. They are also exposed to gender-specific vulnerabilities. For example, women’s roles usually involve having to collect water for their crops manually, as they have limited access to capital compared to men, and are therefore less likely to have the option available to install irrigation systems for themselves, or hire labour to help them. If selling surplus production, women also often find themselves with limited access to markets and transport relative to men. Such gender-specific vulnerabilities are notwithstanding the increasing climate impacts which increase the difficulty of providing food security for their families, a responsibility which often falls on women. Increasing women’s access to water supply and their participation in community institutions is critical to the success of irrigation schemes and a step forward to empowering and transforming women’s lives.
Let’s scale it up: This simple approach to establishing quality irrigation schemes can be replicated in communities across regions. If more schemes are implemented with the accompanying institutions needed to ensure community sustainability, significant health, sanitation and livelihood benefits can be realised, supporting profitable agricultural sectors and creating more employment and trade. The Green Climate Fund, set up for climate change programmes as part of the negotiation’s under the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change, offers an opportunity to scale up approaches to improved climate resilience in order to transform the way land is manged and local economies are developed throughout Zimbabwe and the wider region.
CRIDF is implemented by Adam Smith International, WYG, Interconsult Zimbabwe, South South North, and Ecorys.