Initiatives to boost resilience towards El Niño in Zimbabwe’s rural communities

Most Zimbabweans living in rural areas experience acute shortages of water for domestic and agricultural purposes. Household poverty amongst rural inhabitants is also increasing because of factors such as El Niño-induced droughts, overdependence on donor assistance and government’s failure to invest in sufficient water infrastructure. The purpose of this article is to interrogate the initiatives that have been taken to alleviate food insecurity in Zimbabwe’s rural communities. Under the spotlight are the strategies that rural communities and other stakeholders embraced to adapt to the effects of El Niño and to reduce food poverty. We used extensive literature review methodology and explorative qualitative design to investigate how rural communities and other stakeholders in Zimbabwe deal with the issues of food security in the context of persistent El Niño-induced droughts. The results show that rural communities in Zimbabwe continue to experience food security challenges that require collaboration between communities, government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other stakeholders to build resilience against El Niño-induced droughts. Modernising water supply systems and agricultural management systems can improve the efficiency and effectiveness in food production and distribution.


Introduction
reported that globally, 800 million individuals are hungry and four million face critical water insecurity. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (UN-SDG) number 2 explicitly emphasises ending hunger and achieving food security. It also seeks to improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture (UN 2015). The SDG 6 calls for 'increasing access to clean drinking water and sanitation for all' (UN 2015). Previously, during the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in 2012, world leaders reaffirmed that everyone has a right to safe and clean water and nutritious food. The UN Secretary-General's call for the Zero Hunger Challenge was launched at Rio+20. The conference called on stakeholders such as governments, faith communities, civil society groups, research organisations (institutions), and the private sector to collaborate in order to end hunger and eliminate malnutrition. Article 15 of Zimbabwe's Constitution requires the state to ensure production and storage of adequate food. Furthermore, the state should establish adequate food reserves and promote adequate and proper nutrition using mass education and other appropriate means. Article 77 of the Constitution explicitly recognises the right to enough food and water.
Seemingly, development practitioners, policy makers, environmentalists and disaster management practitioners are increasingly showing interest in the effects of El Niño events on human life. The purpose of this article is to determine the possible initiatives or strategies and support programmes that can boost food security in Zimbabwe's rural communities. The article is organised as follows: after the literature review on El Niño and related aspects in section 2, research methodology used is provided in section 3, which is followed by results and discussion in section 4, and finally the conclusion in section 5.

Literature review Theoretical reflection
This article is underpinned by a theoretical reflection on stakeholder engagement, whose tenets are collaboration in resource mobilisation, programming, and resilience building. These tenets are the hallmarks of sustainable climate proofing of smallholder farmers. Stakeholders (Wehn et al. 2018;White et al. 2018) are people or organisations with a positive interest in activities that promote social good. In the current context, stakeholder engagement is a process of identifying and bringing Most Zimbabweans living in rural areas experience acute shortages of water for domestic and agricultural purposes. Household poverty amongst rural inhabitants is also increasing because of factors such as El Niño-induced droughts, overdependence on donor assistance and government's failure to invest in sufficient water infrastructure. The purpose of this article is to interrogate the initiatives that have been taken to alleviate food insecurity in Zimbabwe's rural communities. Under the spotlight are the strategies that rural communities and other stakeholders embraced to adapt to the effects of El Niño and to reduce food poverty. We used extensive literature review methodology and explorative qualitative design to investigate how rural communities and other stakeholders in Zimbabwe deal with the issues of food security in the context of persistent El Niño-induced droughts. The results show that rural communities in Zimbabwe continue to experience food security challenges that require collaboration between communities, government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other stakeholders to build resilience against El Niño-induced droughts. Modernising water supply systems and agricultural management systems can improve the efficiency and effectiveness in food production and distribution.  Wehn et al. 2018;White et al. 2018). Stakeholder engagement also enhances adaptation, implementation (Sherman & Ford 2014) and success in coping with disruptive events. It is a critical mechanism for building strong relationships within communities (Granville et al. 2016).
Stakeholder engagement promotes the transfer of knowledge on El Niño and the food value chain amongst the stakeholders. The knowledge could radiate from government officials, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), food security experts, amongst other important stakeholders (Wehn et al. 2018). Stakeholder engagement is critical in harnessing resources, ideas, methods and strategies that are important for the recovery from the disruptive El Niño phenomenon. Communities prone to food and water insecurity can work towards building the capacity to recover from or resist the negative events (Burnside-Lawry & Carvalho 2016).

The El Niño phenomenon
In sub-Saharan Africa, food poverty is linked to several factors, chief amongst them being insufficiency of water for industry, agriculture and domestic use.  (Arslan 2018;FAO 2016;Mazvimavi et al. 2017;RIASCO 2017;WFP 2016). Rainfed food crop production is the critical source of livelihood in Southern Africa (Mavhura, Manatsa & Mushore 2015).
Outside the Southern African region, Owusu et al. (2019) reported crop failure and poor harvest in Ghana because of the 2015-2016 El Niño-induced drought. They also reported that 'The major impacts of the El Nino induced rainfall failure and yield reduction were household food insecurity, loss of income, indebtedness and deepening poverty' (Owusu et al. 2019:618). In Zimbabwe, the impact was significant because 70% of the food production is dependent on peasant agriculture (FAO 2016) and more than 80% of the rural households have no access to water for irrigation purposes. RIASCO (2017)  Several policy related solutions to the challenges have been suggested for adoption by sub-Saharan governments. This article acknowledges the WFP's (2016) proposal that investment in resilience building should be stepped up for sustainable rural agriculture in Southern Africa (Nhemachena et al. 2018). Resilience is the ability to withstand and recover from shocks and it is a vital element of adaptation (Mukwada & Manatsa 2017). The basket of resilience building would carry the following ingredients: upscaling social protection, agricultural reforms (to smart agriculture), climate change mitigation (Kumar 2014) (through smart livelihoods options), and management of natural resources. The major advantage of resilient building is that it empowers affected communities to recover, manage and survive future El Niño shocks with little or no external intervention.   El Niño is also a threat to the security of women who make up 52% of the Zimbabwe's population which lives mainly (86%) in the rural areas (Echanove 2017). Over 70% of Zimbabwean women depend on rainfed agriculture, whilst 39% of rural households are women headed (UN Zimbabwe 2016). The El Niño disasters affect women's livelihood options by negatively impacting on agricultural productivity. Droughts affect irrigation, thus affecting 83% of women engaged in irrigation schemes. They also reduce livelihood options for women who rely on casual paid labour on farms, irrigation schemes and agriculture-based industries.
Atmospheric warming (Tol 2005) affects agriculture production and increases livestock mortality from vector-borne diseases and heat stress. In the first quarter of 2016, 54% of the households in Zimbabwe had no regular water supply. Increasing water scarcity forced households to share unprotected water sources with livestock, thus increasing the risk of gastrointestinal infections.

Research methods
Literature review is an appropriate method for carrying out an explorative qualitative study. Specifically, a traditional or narrative literature review process (Cronin, Ryan & Coughlan 2008;Green, Johnson & Adams 2006) was adopted for this study. Traditional or narrative literature review was used to provide a qualitative assessment of previously studied relationships amongst concepts or constructs (Blettner et al. 1999). Additionally, literature review has an advantage of limiting research bias because it constitutes a scientific narrative of the phenomenon being researched (Aliaga-Isla & Rialp 2013). For this present study, literature review enabled us to identify knowledge gaps in ways or initiatives for boosting resilience towards El Niño in Zimbabwe.
Although we did not use systematic literature review, we followed the following logical steps to improve the outcomes: • Step1: Selection of the topic. We selected the topic 'Initiatives to boost resilience towards El Niño in Zimbabwe's rural communities' with the methodology in mind. • Step 2: Literature search strategy. In our search strategy, we used key words to develop search strings to improve the article extraction process. The search strings were guided by Boolean Operators to sharpen the search and exclude irrelevant articles in the search results. Search strings were developed from the key words and phrases such as El Niño, rural communities, adaptive capacity, resilience, poverty and Zimbabwe. The following search strings were used: Step 3: Gathering relevant literature. This step involved reading abstracts to screen relevant articles. Some articles identified during the search process were included or excluded based on relevance. Further screening was done after reading full articles and thereafter irrelevant articles were excluded. Finally, the selected articles were analysed to provide answers to the pre-determined research objective. • Step 4: Literature review write-up. After understanding the impact of El Niño and the initiatives used to cope with the circumstances, we then developed the literature section of the article.

Ethical considerations
This article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects.

Results and discussion
The purpose of this article was to explore the possible strategies and support programmes that rural communities in Zimbabwe can adopt to mitigate the effects of El Niño-induced droughts and boost food security. Food insecurity in rural communities is mainly caused by the El Niño phenomenon which induces food poverty. The initiatives identified in literature include: food resilience building in communities, indigenous knowledge systems, water harvesting systems, government agricultural support programmes, food security amongst children and interventions by non-governmental organisations.

Food resilience building in communities
Zimbabwe is generally endowed with a resilient population (Brazier 2015). Social networks, especially in the rural areas help the rural population to cope with food supply shocks and stresses. Traditionally, the rural farmers of Zimbabwe used mixed crop-livestock systems which enabled them to take advantage of drought resistant animals such as goats and donkeys and small grain crops such as rapoko (finger millet), sorghum and mhunga (local Shona language term for pearl millet or bulrush millet). The general failure of these practices prompted the African Climate Summit of 16 November 2016 which identified seven (7) initiatives to enhance resilience in vulnerable rural communities (MEWC 2016). Chief amongst these initiatives is the Rural Resilience Initiative (RRI), which intended to build the capacities of rural communities to cope with climate change.

Indigenous knowledge systems
The rural communities should make use of indigenous knowledge to enhance and ensure crop and livestock production. For example, rural communities use traditional medication such as murunjurunju or muvengahonye (Cissus quadrangularis) for livestock wound management (Marume et al. 2017). Unfortunately, these methods are not environmentally friendly as they involve debarking trees for medicine amid low aptitude towards re-afforestation. The other challenge is that the livestock treatments are not suitable for new animal and crop diseases. For this reason, the treatment regimens have a high failure rate.
Scientific knowledge is required to help the farmers build a science-based innovative resilience mechanism against El Niño-induced droughts. Slow uptake of scientific knowledge weakens the communities' capacity to cope with climate related food disasters.

Water harvesting
In-field rainwater harvesting technologies are important to support underground water system and limit the impact of drought (Dile, Karlberg, Temesgen & Rockström 2013;Gwenzi & Nyamadzawo 2014). Wuta et al. (2017) stated that the rainwater harvesting mechanisms which are currently used include infiltration pits, ridges and basins which farmers dig along contours ridges. These in-field technologies for rainwater harvesting are currently being used in Zimbabwe (Wuta et al. 2017) at a low scale.
The Zimbabwean government has made efforts to put in place resilient water management systems to enhance food crop productivity. Zimbabwe's MEWC introduced 'Command Rain Water Harvesting Programme' to boost agricultural water supplies in the rural areas. The Government has also put in place many irrigation schemes to enhance crop production in dry areas (Dube 2016;Moyo et al. 2017). Recently, the Government of Zimbabwe commissioned Tokwe Mukorsi Dam, the largest inland water body in Zimbabwe. With a carrying capacity of 1 915 000 m 2 , it is expected to benefit 3200 rural households. Dams such as Lower Gweru, Mushandike, Stanmore, Rupike, Chinyamatumwa, Mashoko, Rozva and Shereni support small scale irrigation schemes. Each of the schemes benefit an average of 180 households of six members each translating into 7680 rural beneficiaries. The list of irrigation schemes excludes small scale irrigation schemes such as Mabwematema in Zvishavane and others run by individuals using either underground water or small dams.

Government agricultural support programmes
In 2016, the Government of Zimbabwe imported 700 000 metric tonnes of maize to reverse the impact of crop failure (The Herald 2016). Command agriculture was put in place to boost crop production in the rural farming sector. Command agriculture is a government and private sector-sponsored subsidy facility where farmers receive loans in the form of seeds, herbicides, pesticides, fertilisers, fuel and equipment. Under the programme, loan repayment is made using part of the harvest obtained in the following agriculture season. In 2016, Simpson Mukari from rural Goromonzi testified to the Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) as follows: I cultivated 20 hectares under command agriculture and what I harvested exceeded my expectations. I have repaid the loan in full, set aside enough maize to last a year for my [six-member] family, and might not need another loan since I made a good profit. After repaying the loan I was left with a net harvest of 40 tonnes of maize worth more than $15,000. (The New

Food security amongst children
El-Nino-induced droughts have had serious repercussions on child nutrition in Zimbabwe. Over the years, the government has made concerted efforts to ameliorate this crippling condition. In fact, over a quarter of Zimbabwe's children experience stunted growth because of food shortages and malnutrition (UNICEF Zimbabwe 2018). Stunting slows down growth and brain development amongst children. It also affects their performance at school and has long term effects in life. Studies have shown that one in every four children between the ages of 6 to 59 months suffer from vitamin A deficiency. In addition, 72% of the children live with iron deficiency, and 33% suffer from anaemia. Amongst women of childbearing age, 25% have vitamin A deficiency, 60% have iron deficiency and 26% are anaemic. The Government of Zimbabwe has made efforts to address these challenges, chief amongst them was the introduction of the integrated management of acute malnutrition services in more than 97% of health care facilities and the National Food Fortification programme which saw the reduction of stunting from 33% in 2010 to 26% in 2018 (UNICEF Zimbabwe 2018).

Non-governmental organisations interventions
Non-governmental organisations help in building resilience by funding community projects that alleviate water shortages. Water harvesting is an important strategy that reduces water supply shortages. According to Makwanya (2016: On the other hand, FAO's 2016-2017 plans provided US$13 million for agricultural production, US$15.2 million to promote livestock production and US$6 million to promote access to water in vulnerable communities (FAO 2016). What is currently missing is effort by consortia of diasporas to support initiatives by the above-mentioned players. Table 2 shows the Zimbabwe United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Humanitarian Funding support which is under the Southern Africa Response support programme. The information demonstrates how NGOs are helping communities to cope with the circumstances created by El Niño-induced dry-hot events. As illustrated in Table 2, NGOs such as CARE, CRS, FAO, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), International Rescue Committee (IRC), Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (OXFAM) and World Vision are working tirelessly to ensure water and food security in Zimbabwe. The activities supported by these organisations are important in fighting water and food insecurity, thus building resilience amongst communities in rural Zimbabwe. A total funding of $12 217 812 was budgeted to enhance resilience amongst rural communities in the face of El Niño conditions. These efforts are not enough to cushion all rural communities from El Niño-induced disasters; nevertheless, they are a step in the right direction.

Conclusions
This research interrogated initiatives taken in Zimbabwe to create sustainable solutions for food security of rural household in the context of the El Niño phenomenon. Rural communities, the government and NGOs are seized with projects that aim to ameliorate the food security situation in rural communities impacted by the devastating effects of El Niño. Lack of proper coordination of efforts by the stakeholders affects the effectiveness of the food security initiatives. The study recommends the modernisation of the traditional agricultural management systems, investment in indigenous knowledge systems, intensive training of the rural communities on climate-proofing agriculture and commercialisation of rural agriculture. The government is encouraged to implement an appropriately mechanised and monitored command agriculture and command rainwater harvesting system. The success of the proposed systems will depend on the training of rural farmers and extension system, accurate weather information sharing and deep involvement of the diaspora, NGOs, the AGRITEX department in the MEWC, local communities, and research institutes in the country.