admin
Rumbidzayi Zinyuke Senior Reporter
THE enumeration of the urban population under the Zimbabwe Livelihoods Assessment started yesterday across the country with the exercise seeking to evaluate how Zimbabweans are living and challenges they are facing.
The assessment, conducted by the Zimbabwe Livelihoods Assessment Committee (ZimLAC), is key in coming up with estimates of how many in the urban population are likely to be food insecure this year, their geographic distribution and the severity of their food insecurity.
Nutrition director in the Food and Nutrition Council Ms Siboniso Chigova said the enumeration was targeting a sample of approximately 15 000 urban households across the country.
“We have commenced our urban livelihood assessment in all the urban areas around Zimbabwe and we are targeting 30 households per enumeration area. So for a particular domain, we are looking at 300 households. In total we are targeting approximately 15 000 households across the country.
“Our teams have been deployed in all urban areas and we expect to collect data that is going to inform policy programming and interventions meant to improve the livelihoods of urban populations. We are looking at the parameters that influence the livelihood options around Zimbabwe,” said Ms Chigova.
She said issues being assessed include food security, nutrition, socio-economic profiles, access to basic services like water and sanitation and sources of income.
ZimLAC is a consortium of Ministries, UN agencies, NGOs, academia and international organisations which is co-ordinated by the Food and Nutrition Council. Since its inception in 2001, ZimLAC has undertaken 10 urban and 23 rural livelihoods assessments.
Through the annual livelihoods assessments, ZimLAC seeks to ensure a national integrated food and nutrition security information system that provides timely and reliable information on the food and nutrition security situation, the effectiveness of programmes and informs decision making.
Chief agricultural extension specialist in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries and Rural Development Ms Shamiso Chikobvu said agriculture was playing a vital role in the livelihoods of urban populations.
“In the urban areas, there are people who make a livelihood through farming. We even have a section for urban agriculture in our Ministry, so people’s source of livelihood differs with the area where they live.
“If we look at Epworth, we see that people are farming the maize that they eat, and they also earn income from that. Even the vegetables they grow in their gardens contribute to their nutrition and incomes so this is what we are looking at as we conduct the assessment,” she said.
Residents in suburbs in Harare who were interviewed by the enumerators said the assessment sought to understand their way of life and they hoped that the assessment would bring about solutions to some of their challenges.
Said Ms Rutendo Betera from Epworth: “The enumerators asked about how we are living in our home and in the community and how we survive. This is the first time that I have been part of this programme.”
Another Epworth resident Ms Oscar Bomba said some of the challenges they faced was access to water.
“The enumerators were asking about how we are living in Epworth. So we told them that we have no clean water. We however, have proper toilets and pits for disposal of garbage. We hope that this will result in the Government addressing our challenge with safe water,” she said.
In Mabvuku, Mr Francis Mudzungairi said there were many households that were food insecure and needed the intervention of the Government.
“The enumerators were asking us about how we live here and the environment we are living in. I believe this could help in solving some of the problems we have in our communities. We have no running water and survive on borehole water.
“Sometimes we face electricity shortages. Also, the council is not collecting our garbage so this is a huge problem for us, our roads are bad so we are hoping that our Government can solve these problems. Even our youths have been affected by drugs and we don’t know where to start to address this challenge,” he said.
Online Reporter