Decent work in construction and the role of local authorities the case of Bulawayo city, Zimbabwe.

The role of local authorities in promoting decent work is little understood and has been absent from both policy and practice (GIAN, 2005). The purpose of this interdisciplinary study was to identify and describe the existing and potential roles of Bulawayo City in fostering decent work in the construction sector, urban development and related services through policy making, strategic planning and project activities. The study outcomes will contribute to the shared knowledge among local authorities and other stakeholders at the local and international levels. Bulawayo is Zimbabwe’s second largest urban settlement with a 2002 population close to 700 000 i.e. 6% of the national population or 20% of the urban population (CSO, 2002:21), a budget of Z$619 million in 1993/94 (Ndubiwa and Hamilton, 1994), Z$2.5 billion in 2000 and Z$797 billion in 20051. The research team collected national and local level secondary data on decent work variables with a view to compile decent work indicators to help compare Bulawayo City against national and global conditions. Such data was sought from the Central Statistical Office (CSO), the National Social Security Authority (NSSA), employer and worker organisations, construction firms, research institutions and Bulawayo City itself. Key informants in all these institutions were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire and grey literature related to decent work was identified and collected where feasible. While Zimbabwe is not ‘statistics poor’, statistics collected from the institutions cited above are not in formats suitable to answer descent work questions. The political-economic crisis in the country and in particular the government’s frosty relations with the UK, the EU the USA and the white Commonwealth (GoZ, 2005: 25c), have compounded conditions of insecurity for most institutions and individuals; making even the release to outsiders of routine administrative information for research purposes a sensitive affair. Increasingly, key informants were not prepared to release information unless there was a direct financial benefit to themselves or their organisations. It is in this context of economic crisis and tense relations that some in the west have expressed doubts regarding the accuracy of employment, economic and population statistics; alleging that these are manipulated to suit the ruling party. Further, high population movements and the ‘informalization’ of the economy since mid 1990s have left significant socio-economic activities outside the data frameworks of institutions such as the CSO and NSSA. Thus lack of informal sector data is the main limitation of this study. The above obstacles not withstanding, the study compiled reasonable information with detailed data on the social security, social dialogue, health and safety and Bulawayo City’s efforts at strategic planning and local economic development. The term ‘decent work’ was neither known nor used by a majority of the key informants in this study. In general, while the statutory provisions for decent work promotion are sound, in practice the economic crisis has compromised efforts to create and stabilise employment, has poisoned the climate of social dialogue, eroded the value of pensions and benefits and heightened the risks of accidents at work. Except in its areas of direct jurisdiction, Bulawayo City has not played significant roles in promoting social dialogue and social security - issues that are the domain of national authorities. But it has been exemplary in its strategic planning efforts, partnerships, promotion of equality and indigenisation, employment creation, training and education. Employment conditions in Bulawayo are characterised by an acute economic climate that has led to decreasing numbers of jobs since the 1990s in many sectors including the construction sector. The informal sector which had created many jobs during this period is struggling to survive and was disrupted by the 2005 government operation to clear informal enterprises and settlements.

On the periphery: Missing urbanisation in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s 2012 census report suggests that notable de-urbanisation occurred between 2002 and 2012. Some external commentators have cited urban–rural migration and the Fast Track Land Reform Programme – jambanja – initiated in 2000 as the principal drivers of this phenomenon. During field research in the second half of 2016, I found that ordinary citizens and key informants – in politics, government and civil society – expressed bewilderment at suggestions that the country is de-urbanising. While the populations of the large cities appear to be growing slowly, if at all, unadjusted boundaries mean that the demographic growth associated with urban sprawl has not been captured. In-depth analysis also reveals rapid population growth in peri-urban areas that should be designated as urban, and in small and intermediate urban settlements. Overestimation of the urban populations, and the rate at which urbanisation levels are increasing in African countries, is a consistent feature of international organisation reports.1 But for Zimbabwe, underestimation seems to have occurred. While the rate of urbanisation may have slowed, the extent of the slowdown appears exaggerated and it is likely to be reversed when boundary changes are made. It is not inconceivable that Zimbabwe could still be majority urban by 2050

Planning scholarship and the fetish about planning in Southern Africa: The case of Zimbabwe’s Operation Murambatsvina

Contributing to the resurgent debate on urban informality in the global south, Kamete (2013) charged that urban planners in Southern Africa have a fetish about informality that is fuelled by an obsession with modernity. In these and other writings, Zimbabwe’s 2005 Operation Murambatsvina (OM) is used as a prototype planning malfeasance. Using the concept of fetish and fetishism, this paper argues that a fixation on and fetish about planning and planners has led some planning scholars to churn out misplaced or misleading understandings of OM regarding the role of planning the operation. Inevitably, recommendations for planning reform from such scholarship are largely inefficacious. It is time planning scholars looked seriously beyond planning for both analytical tools and space for political activism

Urban infrastructure development-human security nexus in Africa’s post-colonies: Flows, spaces and livelihoods framework for comparative research

This desktop study paper suggests a ‘flows and livelihoods’ framework for comparative studies on ‘displaceability’ in the context of infrastructure and investment/projects in diverse post-colonial settings. It uses the ongoing upgrading of Mbudzi (Goats) interchange, in Harare, to discuss the utility of this framework in addressing diverse sustainability and human security questions irrespective of scale, scope and settings of the project. Thus, the paper contributes to integrated ways of understanding dynamics and sustainability of infrastructure investments. In the process, it also responds to Rydin’s (2021) call on the need for exemplars on how theory can be integrated into planning research. Ultimately, what it offers is a heuristic device for cross-sectional and time-series studies

Zimbabwe’s global citizens in 'Harare North': Livelihood strategies of Zimbabweans in the United Kingdom

Chapter

The mystery of recurrent housing demolitions in urban Zimbabwe

This paper reflects on how to interpret the dearth of radical activism in Zimbabwe’s peri-urban areas: why Zimbabwe’s urban ‘subalterns’ do not mobilize against the recurrent heart-wrenching demolitions of their informal settlements housing. It contributes to the understanding of how politics in context is a major determinant of informal urban and peri-urban developments in which working classes, middle classes, elites and the state are major actors. A significant proportion of demolition victims are aspiring risk-taking middle classes socially located in a double bind of the ruling ZANU (PF) party-state’s jambanja empowerment-disempowerment social contract within which alternative uprising looks unfeasible. Intrinsically, jambanja is about the emasculation of prevailing laws such that, when demolitions occur, both victim and sympathizer activism is undermined by the illegality of the original housebuilding. Consequently, demolitions will persist for as long as jambanja and the pervasive structural informality of the ruling ZANU (PF) party-state endure

Rising to the occasion: Diaspora remittances to Zimbabwe during the COVID-19 pandemic

By early 2021, The World Bank was indicating that the massive COVID-19 induced declines in remittance flows it had predicted in the previous year had not materialised; actual declines were smaller and shorter term than expected. In some cases like that for Zimbabwe, there were significant increases. It argued that coronavirus pandemic lock down policies led to a shift from use of informal to formal recorded money transfer channels. However, given the diversity of contexts in source and receiving countries, there is need for continued localised investigations to understand the nature and development policy implications of these flows. Focusing on remittances sent by Zimbabweans settled in the UK (diaspora) during COVID-19 pandemic year, this paper draws on survey data to explore increases in the remittance flows, nature of, motivations for and purposes of remittances. Crucially it examines how the diaspora managed to increase the remittances when they were under immense financial pressure themselves. It confirms and contributes to understanding of the countercyclical nature of remittance flows