Browsing by Subject "Bulawayo"

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    Circumstantial social entrepreneurship: Exploring inclusive, social innovation in the transition from shadow to mainstream economic spaces. A case study of informal sector recycling activities in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
    (2018) Ndlovu, Sinqobile Sichelesile; Nilsson, Warren
    As global solid waste management systems evolve to include wider elements of sustainability, developing countries are struggling with how best to work with a growing informal sector. This research seeks to investigate how developing country mainstream solid waste management systems can harness the opportunities presented through the informal recycling sector. This research explores the dialogue around „formalisation of the informal‟ and „integration of informal recycling sector into mainstream solid waste management systems‟, approaching this from an informal sector perspective. The research endeavours to offer insights to this discourse from an inclusive, social innovation approach. The research looks at what business models the informal recycling sector use as they adopt or adapt industrialised practices and how these harness inclusion and social innovation. The research area is Bulawayo, Zimbabwe with the informal recycling sector as case study. The main research question is “How can we harness inclusion and social innovation as the informal sector transitions into mainstream economic spaces?” The research employs an inductive qualitative approach through a rapid ethnography, focus group discussions and semi-structured key informant interviews. Key concepts explored in this research include „circumstantial social entrepreneurship‟, „generational informality‟, „value chain alliances‟, „public, private, community and informal sector partnerships (PPCIPs)‟ and „inclusive development as a pre-requisite to formalisation‟. By unpacking the business models employed by the informal recycling sector and how inclusive, social innovation opportunities inherent in these can be harnessed during the transition from shadow to mainstream economy spaces, this research intends to offer progressive approaches on how to unlock shared value during the graduation of the informal recycling sector from shadow to mainstream socio-economic spaces. Additionally, the outputs of this research aim to contribute to context-specific knowledge on types of non traditional social entrepreneurial activity within informal spaces and how these push boundaries of inclusive, social innovation.
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    Intimate partner violence among adolescent girls and young women in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and perceived barriers and facilitators to the provision of psychosocial interventions in salons
    (2024) Ndondo, Nonhlanhla; Carney, Tara; Richter, Marlise; van der Westhuizen, Claire
    Background. Women are disproportionately affected by intimate partner violence (IPV), particularly those in low-to-middle-income countries (LMIC). Recent research data suggests that IPV prevalence among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in Zimbabwe is estimated to be 36.5%. Innovative intervention models that leverage gendered spaces to provide IPV support have shown great potential in high income countries, but little is known about these in LMIC settings, including in Zimbabwe. The current qualitative study explored the experiences of IPV among AGYW as well as the feasibility of the use of pre-existing female spaces such as salons to provide psychosocial interventions in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Methods. Nine AGYW who had experienced IPV participated in virtual and in-person key informant interviews. Two focus groups were conducted with salon and spa workers to explore the potential use of salon-based interventions (n=10). Purposive sampling was used as a recruitment strategy. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Results. The findings indicated that in this study, AGYW participants' experiences of IPV consisted mainly of physical IPV such as being beaten with an object, being slapped, or punched with a fist, followed by psychological and lastly, sexual IPV. The results of the study highlighted the factors that seemed to predispose AGYW participants to IPV such as sociocultural influences, economic disempowerment and partner characteristics and behaviours. AGYW participants also discussed the negative physical and mental health impact of the psychological and sexual abuses they had encountered. Both salon workers and the AGYW interviewed identified peer support facilitated by the positive social capital created in salons, as well as the female centeredness of salons as conducive elements for an acceptable intervention. However, some speculations around confidentiality and accessibility to salons were some of the potential barriers identified for implementing salon based IPV interventions. Conclusion. The findings of this study indicated that there is a need to identify and address IPV, as well as the mental health consequences that AGYW experience due to IPV. While the use of predominantly female spaces, in this case salons, were discussed as feasible spaces to incorporate into IPV support models for AGYW, there were certain barriers which will need to be addressed for this to be considered. In addition, it was clear that the content of such interventions needed to include not only IPV and associated mental health issues, but also include other components such as economic empowerment of AGYW, while also challenging traditional gender norms through salon-based interventions. Furthermore, AGYW alluded to their preference for IPV psychosocial support interventions to be peer-based and female-driven. Salons typically provide these aspects, hence increasing their viability as a choice for community based IPV support.
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    Market solutions to the low-income housing challenge – a case study of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
    (2019) Taruvinga, Bridgit Gugulethu; Mooya, Manya M
    The provision of decent, affordable and well-located housing for low-income communities has been an intractable problem, especially for developing countries. The empirical puzzle that motivated this study is that, despite the adverse macro environment in Zimbabwe, there appears to be private-sector developers who are successfully developing housing benefiting the low-income group. This is so, despite numerous studies that claim that given the magnitude of the housing challenge, a neoliberal doxa in a developing country context as a solution is a fallacy. Working on the broad premise that these developments represent a successful adaptation to the structural environment, the main question guiding the study was - what accounts for the success of market provided low-income housing developments in Zimbabwe despite the environment not being conducive for it? The two sub-questions flowing from this main question were firstly, how does the structural environment enable and/or constrain private sector low-income developments in Zimbabwe? Secondly, what strategies do developers adopt in response to the structural enablers and/or constraints to develop low-income housing in Zimbabwe? From these questions, the study has two hypotheses – the first hypothesis is that despite the adverse environment there exists in Zimbabwe structural enablers that make market solutions to the low-income housing challenge possible. The second hypothesis states that developers have specific discernible strategies that they employ in response to the adverse operating environment to reduce development costs to levels that enable them to provide low-income housing successfully. Using the Structure-Agency model, which is a theoretical framework rooted in institutional economics, a conceptual model to study the development process was developed and used to theorise the impact of structure on agency in the development process. Empirical evidence was gathered using observation, household surveys, and semi-structured interviews. This evidence was obtained from five housing schemes, the local authority, central government, financiers and the developers of the housing schemes, and then processed using NVIVO and SPSS. The study finds that most challenges faced by developers emanate from the institutional environment and access to resources. These challenges are namely central-local government dynamics fuelled by political undertones, lack of access to land suitable for the target group, a bureaucratic and stiff regulatory framework as well as a lack of market provided developer and end-user finance. Enabling factors were mainly the withdrawal of the government in the provision of housing in line with World-Bank neoliberal orthodoxy and incapacitation of the local authority, which eliminated alternative sources of housing for the low income group other than market provided housing, thus widening the market base for the developers. Strategies used by the developers include developer provided finance to the target group, preselling developments, sidestepping the local authority through buying land at the periphery of the local authority boundary, sidestepping regulatory barriers through engaging in corruption, backward integration to promote efficient resource allocation, and an innovative approach to risk management that caters for the low-income group. The study concludes that all these strategies have one overriding objective of cost containment. The findings indicate that there is potential, appetite and scope for more private-sector engagement. On this basis, it is recommended that the key to unlocking this potential lies with the state, as there are several policy implications that flow from these findings if the highlighted constraints are to be addressed. The study makes a number of key contributions to knowledge on market solutions to the low-income housing challenge in the area of theory, methodology, policy and empirical data.