Households’ perceptions on resilience building interventions towards enhancing community socio-economic development in Southern Zimbabwe

Abstract

The study assessed households’ perceptions on the contribution of climate resilience interventions to attain community socio-economic development in Southern Zimbabwe. The researcher adopted a mixed method design which utilized both qualitative and quantitative paradigms. Data was collected from 352 households from the 4 Enhancing Community Resilience and Sustainability Projects (ECRAS) wards. Qualitative data was subjected to content analysis while quantitative data was subjected to SPSS version 22.0 for analysis. Climate change and variability impacts in Mwenezi District of Southern Zimbabwe have contributed to failure of the livestock production sector and crop production sector which are the main livelihood options of households in the District. Eventually this retarded community socio-economic development. In response, Government departments, Non-Governmental Organisations and communities collaborated to initiate interventions to manage climate change impacts on community socio-economic development. The efforts made by the stakeholders have evidenced that building climate resilience is contributing significantly to community socio-economic development. The interventions initiated have contributed to food security and dietary diversity, clean water availability, enhanced livestock production and improvement on the community sanitation and hygiene. The households interviewed and some stakeholders’ perceived resilience building as a panacea to climate change induced impacts in communities since households largely depend on climate sensitive sectors. The study therefore recommends adoption of climate smart interventions for all development agendas since majority of households in Southern Zimbabwe largely depend on climate sensitive sectors.