Academic literature on the topic 'Rural Zimbabwe'

This study breaks new ground by looking at an innovative financial approach of livestock banking vis--vis rural finance. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the validity and feasibility of cattle banking as an alternative innovative financing strategy in Africa with specific reference to Zimbabwe. Cattle banking has entered the debate on innovative financing for rural areas. In Zimbabwe, TN Bank (now Steward Bank) has taken the bull by the horns through introducing the new strategy to farmers who are mostly rural. Cattle are very important assets in the rural areas despite the challenge of climate change and global warming that have direct negative effects on pastures. This is an exploratory paper that relies on extensive literature relating to cattle banking. The authors find that cattle banking has the potential to assist farmers to open bank accounts using cattle, thus encouraging them to save their assets. Moreover cattle banking promotes asset-building among farmers. Many farmers in the rural areas of Zimbabwe do not have bank accounts because of what they experienced during Zimbabwes lost decade (2000-2010) when bankers lost millions of dollars to the hyperinflation. This paper recommends that cattle banking should be developed as it has the potential to uplift the livelihoods of rural farmers. It is also seen as an innovative strategy to overcome rural finance challenges.

Only 40% of Zimbabwe’s population has access to electricity. The greater proportion of the power is generated from thermal stations, with some from hydro and solar energy sources. However, there is little investment in the use of wind for electricity generation except for small installations in the Eastern Highlands, as Zimbabwe generally has wind speeds which are too low to be utilised for electricity generation. This paper presents the use of vertical wind profile extrapolation methods to determine the potential of generating electricity from wind at different hub heights in Zimbabwe, using the Hellman and exponential laws to estimate wind speeds. The estimated wind speeds are used to determine the potential of generating electricity from wind. Mangwe district in Matabeleland South province of Zimbabwe was used as a test site. Online weather datasets were used to estimate the wind speeds. The investigation shows that a 2.5kW wind turbine installation in Mangwe can generate more than 3MWh of energy per annum at hub heights above 40m, which is enough to supply power to a typical Zimbabwean rural village. This result will encourage investment in the use of wind to generate electricity in Zimbabwe.
 Highlights
 
 Wind power utilisation is low in Zimbabwe.
 Vertical wind profile is estimated using extrapolation methods.
 Online weather data for soil and water analysis tool was used.
 Electricity can viably be generated from wind in Zimbabwe.

It has been noted that prior to the introduction of public procurement reforms, Zimbabwe’s procurement system was centralised, vulnerable to corruption, inefficient and bureaucratic. In 2018, the new decentralized public procurement reforms were introduced to address the shortcomings of the previous procurement regime by giving procurement powers to procuring entities. The aim of this paper is to highlight the implications of the reforms in implementation by rural local authorities in Zimbabwe. This paper adopted a qualitative research design with desktop approach being used to review related literature. The findings reveal that the plethora of reforms are a welcome development in public procurement. It has also been noted that there are many challenges militating against rural local authorities’ propensity to implement the new set of reforms. These challenges affect the ability of rural local authorities to deliver services timeously to communities thereby retarding realization of sustainable development in rural areas in Zimbabwe.

The objectives of this article was to understand the causes, effects and measures to reduce child marriages in rural Zimbabwe. Child marriages have serious social, economic, health and political implications on young girls and their communities. Young girls are also robbed of their locally and internationally recognised rights. Ending child marriages demands a multi-sectoral approach where all actors, such as parents, national governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), local culture, and religion are involved. This article relies on qualitative methodology to gather data. Purposive sampling and snow ball sampling methods were used to identify key informants and women who were victims of child marriages. Stakeholders involved in children's rights should provide reproductive health and education services to local communities in order to end child marriages.

The advent of mobile money innovations has given people in rural areas, informal settlements and other poor communities an opportunity to participate in Zimbabwe's mainstream financial economy. However, the technology-driven money services have presented some challenges to the traditional banking sector in general and the regulation of financial services in particular. Firstly, most mobile money services are products of telecommunication corporations, which are not banks. Telecommunication companies use their network reach to provide mobile money services via mobile devices at a cheaper cost than banks across the country in Zimbabwe. As such, banks face unprecedented competition from telecommunications companies that are venturing into financial services. It also appears that prudential regulation of banks cannot keep up with the fast pace at which technological innovations are developing and this has created a disjuncture between the regulation and the use of technological innovations to promote financial inclusion in Zimbabwe. The Banking Act [Chapter 24:20] 9 of 1999, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act [Chapter 22:15] 5 of 1999 and the National Payment Systems Act [Chapter 24:23] 21 of 2001 have a limited scope in terms of the regulation of mobile money services in Zimbabwe. The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development launched the National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) 2016-2020 to provide impetus to the financial inclusion of the poor, unbanked and low-income earners in Zimbabwe. However, the NFIS appears to push more for bank-led financial inclusion than it does for innovation-driven initiatives such as mobile money services. This article highlights the positive influence of mobile money services in improving financial inclusion for the poor, unbanked and low-income earners in Zimbabwe. The article also seeks to point out gaps and flaws in the financial services regulatory framework that may limit the potential of mobile money services to reach more people so that they actively participate in the Zimbabwean economy. It is submitted that the Zimbabwean mobile money services regulations and the financial regulatory framework should be carefully amended in line with the recent innovations in mobile money to adequately regulate the use of mobile money services and innovative technology to address the financial exclusion of the poor, unbanked and low-income earners in Zimbabwe.