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Dr. Beacon Mbiba is Senior Lecturer in Urban Development Policy at Oxford Brookes University. His current research focuses on urban land, infrastructure planning, urban finance and rural-urban linkages.

This article references some findings from a study conducted by the Infrastructure and Cities for Economic Development (ICED) Facility, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the position of DFID. ICED is a facility set up to accelerate DFID’s infrastructure and cities initiatives across the world; for more information on ICED, please contact: iced.programming@uk.pwc.com.

The post On the periphery: Missing urbanisation in Zimbabwe – Beacon Mbiba appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

Responsible city authorities are examining how to improve revenue generation and diversify their sources of finance. Following the creation of a sustainable development goal for cities (SDG 11), and ahead of the Habitat III summit in October 2016, ARI invited three speakers to draw upon their experiences on  financing options and the urgent need for a proactive approach on the part of national and municipal governments. It coincides with the publication of a new ARI briefing note Dakar’s municipal bond issue: A tale of two cities.

Professor Susan Parnell, Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, University of Cape Town, and the African Centre for Cities (event podcast 07.13 – 25.45)

• We are all interested in Africa, in cities and in financing. But the community of urban scholars and practitioners is not well defined. People do not always agree on the way cities should be studied, or what is important, and do not approach the issue of financing and Africa’s cities from the same direction.
• The availability of finance is subject to global ideas and capital flows, but is also shaped and captured by local politics and administrative systems. Understanding how this interaction plays out in the case of African urban finance is made much more complex by the fact that while money flows it also gets “fixed” very quickly in a particular type of investment; by the nature of the built environment, for quite some time. There are real conflicts internally in fiscal systems, but many other factors are also shaping urban financing.
• We are in a moment of fundamental change. The discussion about scaling up financing to Africa’s cities has been catalysed by a wider global discussion about sustainable development and cities. The sustainable development goals (SDGs) and discussion about the post-2030 development environment have played a part. So too have a number of major multilateral agreements – the Paris Agreement on climate change is one, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction is another. There has been a global realignment of thinking about what we want, with ramifications for where money will potentially go and shifts in the value system with regard to humanitarian aid, health and biodiversity. These changes are as important as the technical process of capital allocation. The normative base has changed in an attempt to do things differently.
• One of the things that has emerged is that the importance of the sub-national is being emphasised, as well as universality: cities across the world will determine how well we do with the SDGs.
• A number of other important shifts are emerging. For example, Africa has pushed hard to promote in these multilateral agreements a focus on territorial systems and development, not just individual cities. There is also greater emphasis on professionalisation of delivery of sustainable development, whereas previously the emphasis was more on grassroots organisations and participation. The two needn’t be in competition, but the shift has important ramifications for financing and there may be some “push-back”. In this context we are also seeing an increasing aspiration for evidence-based interventions, including in financing.
• Implicit in the shift described is the strong argument that cities are the future; and that Africa’s cities, along with Asia’s cities, are the critical sites of intervention. Africa is not being treated as a blank slate exactly, but the continent offers the potential for rolling out a whole raft of innovative and radical practices. Plenty of innovation is already taking place, of course, but there is a sense that African cities offers the most scope for improvement and transformation. This is the context for discussing the financing of cities, and the way this financing is done will be critically important.
• A word of caution. At the risk of being rude, finance people have no clue about the constraints they are about to encounter when they begin to engage with African cities and the interplay between all sorts of things – planning, law, finance, the building of administrative capacity, corruption etc. The enormous complexity is poorly understood and there is limited time in which to understand it better.

 
Dr Beacon Mbiba, Senior Lecturer, Urban Policy and International Development, Oxford Brookes University (event podcast 26.00 – 48.15)

• It is important to be aware of the history of the social and political dimensions that are barriers to the mobilisation of financial resources in cities.
• A lot has changed in Africa since Habitat II in 1996. The continent is politically more stable, governments are more confident and assertive on the back of economic growth and are determined to dictate what happens rather than be dictated to. Africa now has a coherent strategy – the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
• It appears that the people, civil society and local groups, who were predominant in 1996, have become more marginalised. Governments are now to the fore in formulating the input to Habitat III. There are positives and negatives to this.
• The main challenges in Africa are very rapid urban population growth (although it must be acknowledged that rural population growth is also rapid); and a chronic infrastructure shortage with regards to transport, energy, water and sanitation. Although proper sanitation is accessible by many more people now than a decade ago 2005, the proportion of people with access has not improved. It is a similar story with access to water.  Of course there is much diversity between countries and cities: Accra is not Takoradi and it is not Addis Ababa. The countries with higher economic growth have been able to spend more on urban infrastructure.
• The quality of local government will be critical to the sustainability of urban development. We need to have better planning, the political will to manage local finances and resources, and an improvement in local-central relations. Strong, accountable, democratic, participatory local governance is necessary.
• This imperative raises important questions about resources. At present, finance raised by local governments in Africa is paltry by comparison with elsewhere. Most funding comes from central government but often it doesn’t pay; as for urban authorities, they often don’t even collect revenues that are due to them. We need to better manage what we have. At least 30% of local government revenue should be self-generated. Ideally, financing should come from land tax or rates, but in most cases land is poorly managed. Urban authorities and elites are the biggest culprits when it comes to non-payment for services.
• Since Habitat II, new sources of finance have emerged. One of the most significant – China – isn’t “new” at all. It’s an old partner of Africa. Remember the TAZARA railway. It is now financing many urban projects which traditional western sources of finance wouldn’t touch with a bargepole, such as the Addis Ababa light railway. Such projects can have a major impact on mobility, social inclusion, densification and increased productivity and economic diversification. A journey across Addis which a few years ago took me 2 hours now takes 35 minutes on the light railway. For the poor, especially, this is a significant improvement, although we must bear in mind that cost recovery systems and debts incurred by city authorities often place a greater burden on the poor than the better off.
• There is a need for a new social compact between central and local governments. Since 1996, decentralisation laws have been passed in most countries in Africa, yet this has not been pursued in earnest. Political tension between the centre and the local remains high. Most capital cities are controlled by the opposition. This frustrates constructive, sustainable development.
• Experimentation by the World Bank and others to see what might make local governments perform better has yielded many positive results. Introducing performance based incentives can work. For example, if you raise more tax locally/ share audited accounts (crucial for project management) with citizens/ introduce more participation in local government decision-making, you will receive a new tranche of funding. We need to ensure that such improvements in governance become sustainable and are not simply abandoned at the end of a programme. Citizen participation and better central-local relations are crucial to sustainability.
• Financing should not be seen in isolation. It is intimately connected to the political and social dimensions of urban management and development. So too is the important issue of physical planning.
• Informality predominates in African cities. Some big businesses even operate informally. Some city administration operate informally and outside the law. This phenomenon will continue to effect the entire political economy in Africa. At the same time, Africa has resources which it is not tapping effectively. More of what is lost needs to be captured.
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Jeremy Gorelick, lead technical adviser, Dakar Municipal Finance Program; lecturer, Johns Hopkins University (event podcast 49.00 – 73.10)

• While it is true that the financial sector is ill-prepared for conditions in Africa, it is equally true that city leadership is ill prepared for financiers. It is alarming how many cities think they can launch a municipal bond issue without actually having established a credit history. There are many steps to go through before borrowing commercially from external investors. City leaders are often not prepared to take the time to do the work on structuring and planning projects or assessing appropriate financing packages.
• Municipal bonds are attracting a good deal of attention in African capitals, but more traditional sources of funding should not be overlooked: taxes, concessional grants from central government or international donors, user charges for services, and property income.
• In many cities, potential investors are confronted by deterrent factors including: high levels of indebtedness; an unwillingness or inability to demonstrate how loans will be repaid; a weak institutional framework, notably when responsibilities  have been transferred through devolution without a concomitant transfer of necessary skills to carry them out; weak project management skills and feasibility assessments for the ongoing maintenance and management costs of a project; and shallow domestic or regional financial markets for listing new securities.
• Additionally, potential financiers have to consider the enabling environment in a country. Is central government genuinely supportive of local government? Will a mayor or administration’s commitment to a project survive a change in city leadership? Does the city has a credible master plan? Does the project serve its purported purpose – do the users actually care about it? These are all important questions which will routinely be asked.
• Dakar’s finances in 2011 were not bleak, but neither was the outlook promising. The cost of the planned investment budget exceeded available revenue and this deficit was set to widen. But Dakar showed what can be done. It had a record of creditworthiness, having repaid some concessional project loans. The leadership was committed to public participation in the planning of the proposed project, a new market in downtown Dakar that would offer subsidised rents to street traders. The proposed investment project was revenue generating. As a result, the city secured a reasonable rating from an external ratings agency and a credit guarantee for 50% of the principal amount of the loan from USAID. However, Dakar’s experience was also instructive in another, less positive respect: the central government’s refusal, for political reasons, to allow the bond issue to go ahead highlighted a tension that exists in many countries in Africa.
• If central governments are not more supportive of local governments and remain unwilling or afraid to decentralise in the way they have said they will, the sustainable provision of external financing for Africa’s cities will be very problematic.

Podcast

Photos

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Download the Grain Revolution Policy Voice

Food shortages are the root cause of poverty in Zimbabwe’s Gutu district. Rainfall is generally low and erratic. In most places the soil is sandy and over-cultivated. High population density means that the vast majority of the district’s 40,000 households are restricted to farming on small plots. By the mid-2000s the effect of an economic crisis on the government’s agricultural budget and an over-reliance on growing maize, a crop that requires high rainfall, had drastically undermined food security in Gutu. The perennial fear of food shortages in turn stymied agricultural and economic innovation, ensnaring the population in increasingly precarious subsistence farming.

Following a severe drought in 2005, the Chinyika Communities Development Project was conceived by Dr Chidara Muchineripi as a means to overcome the persistent threat of food shortages – and even famine – in Gutu, his home district. His objective was to persuade farmers dependent on maize production to plant finger millet, a neglected crop that is indigenous to Zimbabwe. Chidara’s rationale is simple: finger millet is drought-resistant and better suited to semi-arid and arid areas than maize. Although its cultivation is more labour-intensive, it requires fewer expensive inputs than maize. It is also highly nutritious and can be stored for up to 25 years.

By 2014 almost every household in Gutu had participated in the project. Farmers with a nucleus of finger millet production each have 3-5 years of strategic food reserves and the collective capacity to produce a surplus of up to 2,000 tons a year. Accumulated reserves of finger millet exceed 20,000 tons. Families in Gutu now have a stable, dependable supply of food. This has been achieved without any external intervention or funding. As Chidara makes clear in this timely and instructive Policy Voice publication, the success of the Chinyika Communities Development Project is grounded in participatory research, community engagement and local ownership. Traditional knowledge and culture have been very much in the vanguard in addressing Gutu’s predicament.

The narrative is about much more than switching from one crop to another. A stable supply of food – and behavioural change – has imbued farmers with the confidence to pursue various income-generating activities. Chidara is adamant that farming is a business. In Gutu, finger millet has been the key to the emergence of a diversified and innovative family farming system. Elsewhere the transformative crop – or animal – might be different.

In the long term, Chidara’s aim is to develop a vibrant cash market for small grains in Zimbabwe and the wider region. While optimistic about the potential, he is candid about the obstacles and delivers clear recommendations regarding the practical and policy measures that would further transform the livelihoods of farmers in Gutu and other rural districts of Zimbabwe.

Grain Revolution is a sequel to Chidara’s Policy Voice “Feeding five thousand: The case for indigenous crops, in Zimbabwe”, published in 2008.

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Chidara felt compelled to launch the CCDP following a visit to his home village of Tavengwa during a severe drought in 2005. Chidara brought his mother a gift of five bags of maize, which prompted other families to ask for food, as their situation was far worse than hers. In response, Chidara set about transporting maize to households in Tavengwa from areas where the harvest had been reasonable. Although this solution would do for the short-term, Chidara was concerned about its sustainability. It was all very well dropping off 50kg of maize but what would the families do two or three months down the line when food supplies ran out? A long-term solution was needed and he was certain that to have any hope of success it would have to come from the people themselves.

As it happened, the indigenous knowledge of Gutu’s older farmers held the key to the district’s residents achieving food security. They remembered a time before recurrent food shortages, when communities kept themselves adequately fed by growing finger millet. This small grain is far better suited to Gutu’s semi-arid climate than maize. It is highly nutritious, providing everything the body needs in terms of vitamins, minerals and fibre. It also has medicinal value and can be used to manage high blood pressure and diabetes. School children are healthier since finger millet was re-introduced to the dirt and teachers say their results have improved. Crucially, this small grain has the advantage of an impressively long shelf life – it can still be consumed after 20-25 years provided it is stored in a closed and dry environment.

The CCDP’s transformative power derives not so much from helping farmers diversify their crops but more from providing a platform for communities to become economically self-sufficient. Through the process of becoming self-reliant for food, communities gain the confidence and ability to pursue income-generating activities, such as fish farming and beekeeping. Its success and sustainability is grounded in behavioural change. Practitioners seeking to realise similarly transformative impact should take away three main lessons from the CCDP:

1. Traditional knowledge has a crucial role to play.
2. Communities must be continually engaged and asked about what should be done rather than told what to do.
3. A long-term view is vital as it takes time for new approaches to become established norms.

Finally, in a country riven with political division, it is notable that the CCDP has not been co-opted by politicians, despite its success. This is in large part thanks to the efforts of one Mrs Mlambo, the CCDP’s dynamic co-ordinator who has ensured that the project is steadfastly non-partisan.

Questions

Q: Anna MacPhail, King’s College, London: “Why did growing finger millet cease to be a norm and maize become the dominant crop in Zimbabwe?”

A:  CM responded that maize was introduced when colonial rule was established in Zimbabwe, as it was viewed as good for the people and a suitable way of feeding workers in mines and factories. The colonialists promoted the growing of maize by both commercial farmers and those living on communal lands. The seed houses took advantage of this prioritisation of maize and conducted research focused on breeding different varieties for maize to suit the different regions of Zimbabwe. Eating habits evolved in line with this strong preference for maize, leading to meals using finger millet being widely seen as inferior and laborious to prepare. In the early days of the CCDP, young people were turned off by finger millet’s dark colour, which they likened to boot polish. It does not help that finger millet can be grainy and unappetising if poorly processed, which underlines the importance of capturing the knowledge of older people who know how to prepare the grain best. Finally, the government’s Grain Marketing Board (GMB) would only buy surplus maize and not finger millet. Therefore, if you wanted to make money by selling to the government, finger millet was a non-starter as a choice of crop.

Q: Sagar A Sumaria, soethical media: “How do you recapture lost indigenous knowledge not only about food but also about holistic medicine? How do you respond to arguments that the efficacy of indigenous herbs and medicines is not scientifically proven?”

CM recognised that promoting complete health through making use of cheap and locally available medicine highlights a significant challenge: how do you recollect, document and use indigenous knowledge? It is not enough for herbs and crops simply to be available, each of their unique uses needs to be understood. Since this knowledge is oral, it runs the risk of being lost when old men and women die.

Responding to the second question, CM said that medical professionals are increasingly aware of the usefulness of traditional medicines and many argue that they can be used concurrently with conventional medicine. It makes sense to supplement conventional medicine with herbs that can be easily grown in your backyard.

Edward Paice, ARI’s Director, added that, in April, Father Anselm Adodo from Pax Herbals will be in London to launch his own publication about his enterprise manufacturing traditional medicine in Nigeria, which supports a large network of local outgrowers and distributes nationally. Pax Herbals is held up by the Nigerian Health Ministry as a model of how to commercialise age-old traditional remedies – and to do so in a scientific manner.

Q: Louise Piper, Haller Foundation: Are you worried that you’ve reached a scale that will cause donors and government ministries to attempt to get involved and pollute the work you’re trying to do?

CM conceded that this was a concern but stressed that fortunately the programme is owned by the people, who are now self-reliant and able to look after things for themselves. Even if donors get involved, the people will likely resist any disruption to what they have seen work in the past. The people are also alert to the fact that politicians always want to associate with success, which explains why Mrs Mlambo does not allow politics at field days.

Audio podcast:  

Film of Chidara’s presentation

 Film of interview with Chidara: 

Photos taken at ‘Grain Revolution’ event:

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Listen to the podcast of “How intellectuals made history in Zimbabwe”

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In this Policy Voice, Chidara Muchineripi, a management consultant from Harare, argues that indigenous crops should play a more important role in African agriculture. Chidara, who is next in line for the chieftainship of the semi-arid district of Gutu, built a consensus amongst local people in favour of growing traditional crops, namely finger millet, pearl millet and sorghum. Traditional crops are scarcely grown in Gutu, with local people favouring commercial crops introduced during the colonial era.

Indigenous crops, he argues, have a number of advantages over the regions staple crop, maize. Most importantly, traditional crops adapt well to different climates and produce higher yields in regions of low rainfall. They require fewer expensive inputs and can be stored for longer periods. Seven villages in the Chinyika communities have been growing indigenous crops for the past three years. Over 5,000 people now have food adequate supplies and a steady cash income from the sale of their surplus crop.

Chidara makes a strong case for policy makers to take local knowledge seriously. But there is no room for nostalgia in these pages. Modern farming innovations have an equal role to play. This Policy Voice argues strongly in favour of developing more productive seed varieties, teaching rural communities improved farming techniques and encouraging farmers to grow a range of crops. Fostering change in rural Africa will require a combination of local knowledge and modern innovations.

Download the full Policy Voice:

The post Feeding Five Thousand: The case for indigenous crops, in Zimbabwe appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

Mark Ashurst, Director of Africa Research Institute, outlined the context of regional mediation on Zimbabwe:

“The regional mediation effort has been described as ‘the only show in town’. There is no other serious diplomatic effort under way at the moment to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe.

South African President Thabo Mbeki was appointed mediator on behalf of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in March 2007. This came just six months after the 14 SADC countries agreed that they would establish a free trade area by 2008, a customs union by 2010, and a common market by 2015.

Many of those countries have also been key players in developing African governance mechanisms, notably the African Union and New Partnership for African Development. Zimbabwe poses a grievous threat to both economic integration and governance and democracy mechanisms.

The ruling parties of South Africa and Zimbabwe, the ANC and ZANU-PF respectively, have historically had a troubled relationship. The dynamic between them was difficult during the Cold War when they had different loyalties. It is arguably more troubled now.

Mugabe is a lonelier figure today. The Joint Operational Command, which brings together the military, police and security services, now has a great deal more power and influence than in the past, including in the economy. It has been said that the governance of Zimbabwe has been ‘militarised, privatised and polarised’.

Nonetheless, Mbeki insists that his regional mediation has made progress. The only real evidence of this is the adoption of Constitutional Amendment 18. It allows parliament to appoint a successor to Mugabe should he retire, and enjoyed cross-party support. Interestingly, however, the most powerful faction in parliament, led by Vice President Joice Mujuru, wife of retired army commander General Soloman Mujuru, was absent for that debate.”

Deprose Muchena, Economic Justice Programme Manager, Open Society Institute for Southern Africa, argued for transparent and consultative mediation:

“In the past, a number of ‘experts’ have made solutions for Zimbabweans in the same way that constitutions were developed for post-independence Africa – at Lancaster House or Marlborough House. There is a series of houses in London where African constitutions were made before being handed over to Africans! We seem to be repeating the same mistakes in Zimbabwe today.

We have the opportunity to craft a genuine transitional framework that will allow Zimbabweans to take control of their destiny and allow Zimbabwe to reclaim its place in the international family of nations. But unfortunately a group of ‘experts’, this time African, are trying to provide solutions for Zimbabweans. Most Zimbabweans are not interested in these solutions.

The context, in which the current talks in Pretoria are taking place, is important. Zimbabwe has now entered the ninth successive year of crisis, while the government continues to use the language of the independence struggle. The current crisis cannot be resolved using the logic from which it was born. A paradigm shift is necessary in order to ensure that the talks generate a meaningful solution.

The economy
If you walk into a supermarket in Harare today you will see little on the shelves but toilet paper and dog biscuits. This is the result of the numerous government operations to reduce prices and restore order. A thriving parallel market for foreign currency has created a thriving parallel market for goods, while the formal economy continues to decline.

There is nothing that ZANU-PF can do to deal with this problem. It is impossible to intimidate the economy. It operates on two principles: supply and demand. Not even the most polished government rhetoric can resolve Zimbabwe’s economic crisis.

ZANU-PF has no economic policy framework. In September of this year, the finance minister, Samuel Mumbengegwi, presented a supplementary budget to parliament to deal with problems of expenditure management – it was six times larger than the budget it sought to supplement, a new record in economic history.

In addition to economic decline, Zimbabwe has seen the growth of a parasitic elite that has captured the state. This elite uses the state to accumulate wealth, employing a variety of methods including enacting laws. A new law will soon indigenise the economy by ensuring that 51% of all shares on listed companies will be owned by Zimbabweans. What sort of Zimbabwean can afford to buy company shares?

This economic crisis has regional implications. Zimbabwe is now the largest exporter of human capital in the region. Migrants get absorbed by their host countries but become deskilled. They might enter as an engineer and end up selling things in a hotel. This creates pauperisation and xenophobia. On the other hand, those in the region who supply Zimbabwe’s parasitic elites are making profits.

This is the economic context in which the South African mediation is taking place. But what is the diplomatic context? The SADC is dominating the process because the Southern African governments believe that Mugabe will only listen to them. The SADC has an interest in demonstrating its ability to handle crises – it dealt with the Lesotho crisis and was involved in dealing with the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Regional mediation
The individual countries within the SADC have competing interests. South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki has made many promises and his own legacy is now tied to Zimbabwe. In Botswana, there has been a relative determination to deal with the crisis in Zimbabwe. Zambian internal politics have affected its policy on Zimbabwe – Michael Sata, leader of the opposition Patriotic Front party, is putting pressure on President Mwanawasa. In Mozambique, there are calls to repay Zimbabwe for its role in resolving Mozambique’s civil war. Namibia’s approach is influenced by its cooperation with Zimbabwe. Angola will probably be expected to finance the rescue package that the SADC is talking about. Thus, within the region there are competing and colluding interests.

The negotiations, so far, revolve around a series of agreements that must be reached before Zimbabwe can resolve its problems. The areas of discussion are: the constitution, elections, reform of the political architecture, an economic rescue package, and transition.

Elections
Progress has been made on the subject of elections. Constitutional Amendment 18 harmonises presidential and parliamentary elections. Both will take place in 2008. It reduces the presidential term from six to five years. It bars the president from appointing MPs – they must be directly elected. It also provides that if a president chooses to retire, parliament will elect a president from among its number.

But their number has increased and the delimitation commission will redraw the boundaries to ensure that there will be more MPs drawn from Mugabe’s province, and more ZANU-PF MPs in general. This is a ploy by Mugabe to determine this succession. It means either that he can determine who will succeed him by ensuring that a majority of the 210 members of parliament will support him.

The retirement point itself is a decoy. He wants people to think he might be ready to retire. But he will not retire, he will die in office. He will try to sell a dummy to the international community and the region, saying that he just wants to win elections on behalf of ZANU-PF and to leave the party in good shape.

Thus the constitutional amendment presents a solution to the succession problem. But it also allow a consolidation of political power and reduces the risk associated with Mugabe standing alone in an election in 2010.

This issue of election conduct has not yet been settled. The MDC have said that there must be an entirely new process for managing elections, involving a new election commission. They have argued for the dissolution of the legion of laws that impede freedom of expression and assembly, including the Public Order and Security Act and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. But the issue of what should replace these laws has not yet been dealt with.

The legitimacy of the negotiations is also problematic. The talks have been highly secretive. But any resolution to the crisis requires the people to be at the centre of the solution. Instead, the solution has been privatised by two political parties: ZANU-PF and the MDC. Yet, the problem in Zimbabwe is greater than these parties. It requires legitimation through an active participation by civil society.

The SADC must look beyond what it has done so far and consider other alternatives. It has already received suggestions from civil society groups. It should listen to them before it rushes to the international community for a rescue package.

The Day After Mugabe: Prospects for change in Zimbabwe

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A short briefing note on the current situation in Zimbabwe that has been sent to all members of parliament with an active interest in Africa. It argues that in developing a practical response to the crisis in Zimbabwe, British policy-makers must recognise the realistic prospect of continued deterioration and the entrenched obstacles to recovery.

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