One of the most crucial natural resources which can make a meaningful contribution to the socio-economic development of rural communities is water. It is widely used for various reasons or purposes ranging from household chores to agricultural purposes. In Zimbabwe, water resources have faced various constraints due to the negative impact of climate change and unreliable rainfall patterns which have significantly contributed to water scarcity within the country. Policies on water in the country have been geared towards redressing the colonial imbalances of unequal distribution of water between commercial farms, urban areas and rural areas instead of increasing water availability and access to the poor households in the rural areas. Previous colonial policies abandoned the development of rural areas even through the distribution and access of water. This paper delves into this intriguing history of water policies in Zimbabwe and whether they have managed to benefit the disadvantaged rural communities. In addition, this paper links the relation between water and socio-economic development. It concludes that the availability of water is crucial in the survival of rural communities who are largely dependent on water for their agricultural activities which is the main source of the economy.

This paper argues that much historical and political analysis of Zimbabwe neglects a crucial resource: water. Using data from Nkayi district, evidence is presented to show how access to water rather than land has been the critical factor in its settlement and development. Water supplies were provided by the state during the first half of the century to support economic and fiscal policies and to render forced resettlement possible. During the years of struggle preceding and including the Liberation War, control over water was used as a weapon, and this remained a significant issue in the post-Independence period. Examples are offered of people's resistance to such control through non-cooperation in water development activities and the evolution of a culture of minimal water use strongly associated with concepts of solidarity and survival. Finally the implications of this historic legacy for current development initiatives are discussed.

Once a thriving center with commercial links to the Indian Ocean, what remains of Great Zimbabwe is its monumental architecture. Its rise and decline have long been linked to environmental changes in southern Zimbabwe, beginning in the second half of the 13th century with agropastoralists thriving in the region's well-watered granite hills and valleys, and culminating in a vast urban and trading society. Later, c.1550 AD, it is argued, drying climate, land overexploitation, and changing regional trading patterns would lead to the decline of Great Zim-babwe. A review of this model is necessary since Great Zimbabwe and communities living around it survive in a region constantly threatened by water crises. However, we still know very little on the forms and uses of water and how these have influenced its development and demise. This article offers a multilayered review of available information on water, including new records on environmental sequences, modern water sources, and provisioning models from in and around Great Zimbabwe. The integration of both old and new datasets allows us to follow the history of people-water interaction from early times to the present. We argue that understanding of the local environment was vital in managing both water excesses and shortages in the past, and show that some of this knowledge survives among indigenous communities linked to the site and living in the surrounding landscape. While nearby Masvingo town has persistently lived under water-emergency conditions, farmers around Great Zimbabwe mitigate shortfalls of modern water provision through a balanced and mutually vital interaction with natural water resources such as springs and soil moisture.

With an estimated 70% of the 11.6 million Zimbabweans living in impoverished rural areas, and dependent on smallholder agriculture for their livelihoods, it follows that improvements in this sub-sector can contribute to poverty alleviation, particularly food insecurity. This depends on appropriate water management in such a semi-arid climate, making the case for appropriate legal regimes in the water sector self-evident. The paper analyses the constraints that are being encountered in this area by drawing some lessons from the colonial era. The colonial state was more successful because it provided the complementary resources for its white hydraulic mission. The failure of the post-colonial state to deliver a black hydraulic mission can be understood in the same terms – the failure to enunciate and pursue an economic ideology that provided for the development of sustainable smallholder agriculture. One of the main reasons was that the post-colonial state did not capitalize on indige...

The aim of this article is to explore ways of increasing agricultural productivity in Zimbabwe in the face of the increasingly uncertain climatic conditions. Agriculture has remained crucial to economic growth in Zimbabwe while it is mainly rain-fed. The total seasonal rainfall amounts are not indicating any significant trend (increasing or decreasing) with time. Changes are only noticed in the form of for example prolonged intra-season dry spells, increasing rainfall variability, increased frequency of storms and hail storms and poor distribution of rainfall in a season. The Meteorological Services Department of Zimbabwe also carries out cloud seeding to enhance rainfall in all rainfall seasons. This helps more in terms of amount than temporal distribution since only clouds with potential to give rain are seeded. It is argued in this article that in order to effectively support agriculture by reducing the effects of temporal distribution of rainfall on yield, irrigation could also ...