Region: Southern Africa
-
Stoking finance for affordable cookstoves: Experience from Malawi and Zimbabwe
Public finance must boost demand for improved and ‘cleaner’ cookstoves by addressing the affordability gap in the poorest households —through price subsidies, concessional end-user financing, and other means. And it must increase supply to expand distribution channels — for example through grants, concessional finance, guarantee instruments, and patient capital to enterprises.
-
Malawian youths call for abortion legal reforms
Malawi has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Africa – only permitting a termination of pregnancy to save a woman’s life. This restrictive law has been reinforced by harmful social norms thereby creating fear and stigma around abortion which leads women and girls to resort to unsafe abortion methods. In Malawi, unsafe abortion…
-
Hivos launches She Leads project to promote full and effective participation of women in political and societal decision-making processes
In a bid to promote the full and effective participation and leadership of women and girls in political and societal decision-making in Zimbabwe, Hivos Southern Africa in partnership with the Embassy of Ireland in Pretoria, launched the She Leads project on 19 August 2020 in Harare, Zimbabwe. By Audrey Mutasa The She Leads project, which…
-
Technology set to change agriculture practices post-COVID lockdowns
Technology might change agricultural practices in Zimbabwe for good, once COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns have ended. This emerged when a women’s entrepreneurial training program was almost derailed because stakeholders couldn’t do required site visits on farms due to stringent lockdown rules. Drone technology came to the rescue, doing the work faster and more efficiently than otherwise…
-
Fifteen women farmers join Food for Export Masterclass 2020
Fifteen women farmers have been selected to take part in the Food for Export Masterclass 2020 (FEM2020): a program that seeks to build the capacity of female entrepreneurs in various aspects of horticulture, dairy production, food processing and food export business with a view to turning them into successful exporters.
-
Involve marginalized groups to make food systems more climate-resilient
Written by Nout van der Vaart, Hivos Advocacy Officer Sustainable Food At last week’s 2020 High Level Political Forum (HLPF), UN member states discussed how to get back on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. They focused on a dire need for “accelerated action and transformative pathways…
-
Common cause with people in the food systems of the majority
Written by Bill Vorley, Research Associate, IIED, Shaping Sustainable Markets research group – June 22, 2020. Bill Vorley discusses why we need a much deeper understanding of and partnership with people in the food systems that feed and provide livelihoods for low-income women and men. The food policy world has been abuzz with talk of transforming…
-
Green is Gold: Unleashing the potential of renewable energy in Zimbabwe
The 5th episode of Green is Gold an online series aired on the 16th of June on ZTN, exploring the full potential of renewable energy in Zimbabwe through investments.
-
6,000 jobs on the line on horticulture farms
More than 6,000 jobs are on the line in the horticulture sector amid calls for the government to intervene and support farming which, like other sectors of the economy, has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
-
Collective bargaining circus continues
A new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) for the general agriculture sector has been signed even before the minimum wages of the last one have been implemented turning the whole process into a circus.
-
Gender-based violence risk spikes on farms
Lockdown measures imposed as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic are putting women at heightened risk of gender-based violence (GBV) at home and cutting them off from essential protection services and social networks. This was revealed in a Hivos-commissioned survey by Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ) titled Impact of Covid-19 on the…
-
A new PERSPECTIVE
PERSPECTIVE is a project that encourages artists to develop fresh content that highlights social issues. Umuntu, the digital production company behind the project, offers an alternative African narrative. It combines augmented reality and music to criticize the state of “our past, present and future” in Zimbabwe and beyond.
