Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe Sustainable Production Landscape Management

Panoramic view over Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe

Program Summary

This activity promotes nature-smart sustainable land management practices for enhanced biodiversity and climate resilience in selected production landscapes in Zimbabwe. 

Challenge

Zimbabwe is a land degradation and climate change hotspot in Africa. The cost of land degradation accounts for 6.3 percent of the country’s GDP and  global climate change models predict a warmer and drier climate that will severely impact ecosystems and people’s livelihoods if not addressed urgently. Nearly 70 percent  of the population residing in rural areas depend on agriculture and natural resources to sustain their livelihood. The Communal lands, which encompass half of the country`s land area, where most of the rural poor live have suffered severe environmental degradation. This is mainly due to increasing land shortage, unsustainable farming practices and poor natural resource management practices (monocultures, overgrazing, deforestation and soil erosion, mining run-off contamination etc.). Also, north-western regions of Zimbabwe are particularly vulnerable to climatic hazards, and unsustainable land and natural resource management, as well as complex interactions between farming communities and the rich biodiversity and ecosystems in these regions. This calls for an integrated management of agricultural lands, forests, land-based ecosystems to maximize synergies and benefits for communities and the environment, while minimizing negative externalities. To do this, knowledge and capacity building that inform integrated management in productive landscapes are needed.

Approach

This activity aims to inform the implementation of Government of Zimbabwe’s Forest and agriculture investment plans and priorities through deepening analytical engagement on drivers of unsustainable management of production and conservation landscapes and provide recommendations for policy and investment considerations. This will build up on the ongoing World Bank engagement with the Government of Zimbabwe on climate smart agriculture investment planning and forest restoration strategic planning. It will also complement sustainable land management related interventions supported by other donors in Zimbabwe. 

[Expected] Results

  • Design integrated landscape management and sustainable biodiversity management approaches in production landscapes.  
  • Participatory stakeholder engagement platform.   
  • Scale-up agrometeorological ICT solution to local governments.