Assessing non-governmental organizations (NGOS) drought risk management strategies in Gwanda District, Zimbabwe

[摘要] Drought represents a major constraint on agricultural production in Zimbabwe. Every year,NGOs intervene in drought affected areas to alleviate hunger and starvation. According to theZimbabwe VuLnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) (2012) approximately 1 millionpeople (12 per cent of the population) required food assistance at the peak of the 2011/2012 dryseason. It is argued that, this number increased in 2013 to 1.6 million - which accounted tonearly one in five rural people in Zimbabwe (ZimVAC, 2012). Drought has had wide rangingeffects to communities including; widespread malnutrition, deaths of livestock, loss of income,declining environmental health standards and massive migration. Amongst the factors thatworsen drought impact in Zimbabwe are HIV/AIDS, massive dependence on rain fed agricultureand climate change. Past studies have focused on coping strategies adopted by drought distressedcommunities covering different case studies. Although this has been useful in understanding thesurvival strategies of communities, researchers have not studied the drought problem and hownon- governmental organizations have contributed in mitigating it.This thesis therefore contributes new and unique evidence on the approaches employed by NGOsin mitigating drought in Zimbabwe. The study is specifically based on a case study which wasconducted in Masholomoshe village located in Ward 1 of Gwanda rural district.Through the use of both secondary and documented evidence and primary data the study foundout that, most NGO drought interventions are short term relief measures and do not focus onpreparedness, prevention, or mitigation aspects of drought management. This thesis also revealsthe need to promote proactive drought risk reduction strategies and activities to addresscommunity vulnerabilities to drought rather than relying solely on emergency responsemeasures. This entails a 'transition from crisis management' to 'drought risk management'. Theconclusions from this large and original dataset are placed within the context of the wideracademic debates. The need for new, relevant and more diverse samples is emphasized toadvance discussions on the effectiveness of NGO strategies in drought risk management inGwanda.

[发布机构] University of the Free State