Joint Project of Concern Worldwide (CW),
Oxfam International (OI) and the Southern Africa Regional Poverty Network
(SARPN)
Zambia
1. Background
A number of Concern Worldwide and Oxfam-International projects were visited in Zambia between the 1st and 10th of May as part of the joint project on strengthening responses to the Triple Threat of HIV/AIDS, food insecurity and weakening capacity for service delivery in the Southern African region(1). The project consisted of a blend of policy level discussions with organisations such as Concern, Oxfam-GB, Women for Change, and HODI and on-site reflections of field staff currently engaged in development work in Mongu District in Western Province. The objective was to debate and document the experiences and understanding of practitioners engaged in supporting communities to achieve livelihood security taking account of factors underpinning a complex situation.
The following represents some of the field observations, which are shared to elicit commentary and debate amongst interested parties. At the outset it was recognised that southern Africa is experiencing a complex crisis, with both acute and chronic dimensions. Drawing on the lessons of the 2001-03 livelihoods crisis and more recent experiences, particularly those of field practitioners, a more nuanced response strategy is called for. A number of issues emerging from the field exercise as crucial with regards to livelihood insecurity in Zambia have been grouped as common themes.
2. Livelihoods in Western Province
Discussions with staff of the Concern and OGB district offices, as well as partners of both organisations, provided a rich understanding of diverse livelihood strategies across Western Province. In many ways a shared analysis emerged around the drivers of food insecurity with some differences in terms of the emphasis.
Overall livelihoods have been seriously impacted since the 2001 regional livelihoods crisis, exacerbated by the outbreak of livestock disease (contagious bovine plural pneumonia, CBPP) that decimated the asset base of many people. The reduction in cattle affected food crop production, as cattle provide draught power and field fertilisation for essentially poor, sandy soils, which resulted in a decrease in the size of cultivated land per household(2).
Livelihoods in Western Zambia also to a large extent depended on rain-fed agriculture and access to labour. Thus the impact of climate variation, in particular rainfall failure, and chronic illness were perceived to be the major drivers of food insecurity. Rainfall variation coupled with high temperatures in the 2004/5 production season significantly reduced both cereal and non-cereal yields in many districts in Western Zambia. This combined with other underlying vulnerabilities such as the lack of state support, particularly in terms of agricultural extension and inputs, reduced many households access to food and other essential non-food items.
The lack of government support, which had also become "normalised", accelerated food insecurity. For example, the fact that there was no veterinary services or cattle inoculation meant that the onslaught of CBPP was seen as an unfortunate livelihood shock rather than a preventable disease that should have been averted as a right(3).
HIV/AIDS was also widely recognised as a major driver of food insecurity. The Food Security Assessment conducted by Concern and MDFA claimed that a high number of people had inadequate information about HIV/AIDS; many in rural areas look at HIV as a disease of town people who return to the village to be cared for when sick(4). Typically respondents did not suspect the chronically ill to be suffering from AIDS but are thought to have been bewitched.
An important dimension to this relationship was the urban-rural connection whereby urban-based family members, who being more exposed to HIV, often returned to their rural home with AIDS. The double burden of caring for the sick and the loss of an urban remittance thus exacerbated the situation faced by many rural households. The fact that many households were now "preoccupied" with caring for those who were sick meant that available resources were not focused on sustainable livelihoods.
The relationship between poverty and HIV/AIDS was also acknowledged, particularly as limited options pushed vulnerable groups into dangerous coping strategies. For example many groups interviewed claimed that women and girls commonly engaged in transactional sex as a coping strategy if a shock such as a crop failure impacted a household.
According to many practitioners, another significant driver of food insecurity was a lack of access to land and other resources by the most vulnerable households. These included female-headed households affected by inheritance disputes. In some instances property grabbing or dispossession was causing destitution. This in turn often led to women being forced into sex work leading to heightened exposure to HIV infection. When combined with evidence that female-headed households tend to be poorer in general than their male-headed household neighbours, International NonGovernmental Organisations (INGOs) face a serious challenge to devise means to protect the rights of poor households (and particularly poor female-headed households) to land within future poverty alleviation and rural development strategies.
As a result of these multiple stressors, it was widely felt that many communities had not really recovered since the livelihoods crisis of 2001 and were definitely worse off than during the 1990s. In particular the erosion of assets such as livestock meant that the resilience of many households had decreased. Resilience implies that a household or community has the ability to absorb shocks (such as the death of a household head) and stresses (such as limited access to health services) because they have well-diversified assets and conduct a range of livelihood activities(5). As a result many households or communities in Mongu had weakened capacity to anticipate, manage, resist or recover from the impact of a natural or other threat. In other words, they were more vulnerable to changes around them.
However, some practitioners also argued that there was evidence of increasingly diversified livelihood strategies being employed across the district. This was largely a result of communities utilising the different environmental options available as they sought alternative strategies in a changed environment(6). For example, a Food Security Assessment conducted by Concern and the Mongu District Farmer Association (MDFA) challenged the notion that livelihoods in Western Zambia were based only on subsistence farming of staple food crops such as maize. The report held that sources other than own food production made up 57 percent of total food sources and that up to 43 percent of food needs were purchased or exchanged for labour in Mongu district.
Despite this optimism around livelihood diversification, it was conceded that many coping strategies, utilised during times of stress, had become normalised. For example, the increased use of mango porridge outside of the hungry season, as well as dependence on wild foods was increasingly common. It was also acknowledged that fishing and fish trading, as an increasingly important source of income, would likely fall under increasing pressure due to environmentally unsustainable methods(7).
Footnotes:
(1) The underlying problems of HIV/AIDS, food insecurity and weakening capacity for service delivery (triple threat) is rapidly reversing development gains, leaving communities and whole societies more vulnerable to external shocks, such as the effects of the dry-spell that impacted the region in late 2005.
(2) Pigs and goats have been promoted as an alternative to cattle, which has impacted negatively on the environment, particularly the sensitive flood plains.
(3) The current emphasis on goats as an alternative to cattle may be undermined by CCPP for goats, which decimated this livestock population in West Pokot in Kenya in the late 1990s, without linking it to an inoculation programme.
(4) Concern (2005) "Food Security assessment Final Report", August, Mongu, Zambia.
(5) In a diversified household, if one productive activity does not provide enough, or fails completely, there are other sources of livelihood that the household can fall back on.
(6) An interesting indicator of change was the increased use of cassava to supplement maize, as its drought-resistant qualities were increasingly recognised by communities.
(7) A conflict of interest has arisen between fishing and agriculture where prolonged rainfall failure has forced farming communities to place rice fields along waterways, which affects water flows and fish numbers.
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