Harare

Governing the poor in Harare, Zimbabwe : shifting perceptions and changing responses

Upphovsperson:	Kamete, Amin Y.
Utgivare:	Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År:	2002
Ämnesord:	Urban population, poverty, Urban policy, Governance, elections, Zimbabwe, Harare, SOCIAL SCIENCES, SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP

This is a study of the 'terrain of urban governance', using areas of Zimbabwe's biggest city Harare as case studies. It presents and discusses sets of perceptions of poverty and the poor which influence policy development and decision making among urban 'governors'. Kamete shows the effects of positive as well as negative perceptions of the poor. He also problematises more conventional understandings of poverty and includes into his own conceptual understanding dimensions of deficient access to participation and citizenship. He shows that the relationship between power and powerlessness among the poor is much more complex than is sometimes assumed. The urban poor in Harare - since the emergence of significant political opposition in Zimbabwe in the late 1990s - have become both an important and volatile instrument to be wooed and paid by populist politicians. At the same time - in their patterns of voting - they have been a mainstay of support for opposition to the ZANU-PF government at both local and central level.

Women informal traders in Harare and the struggle for survival in an environment of economic reforms

Upphovspersoner:	Mupedziswa, Rodreck | Gumbo, Perpetua
Utgivare:	Nordiska Afrikainstitutet | Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År:	2001
Ämnesord:	Structural adjustment, Informal sector, trade, Women, Household consumption, Survival strategies, Zimbabwe, Harare, SOCIAL SCIENCES, SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP

This report summarises the results of the fourth and final round of interviews carried out among informal sector women traders in Harare, Zimbabwe as part of a longitudinal study of their conditions of work and livelihood in the context of economic crisis and structural adjustment. The evidence which was available from the interview points to a deepening social crisis in Zimbabwe as attested to by the increasing crisis of subsistence and livelihood among the overwhelming majorette of the informal sector workers. Far from being the terrain where sections of the populace might be able to find economic liberation, the informal sector is, in fact characterised by serious internal differentiation, very low incomes, and an over-saturation that results in the inability of the women survey to do anything other than struggle at the margins for basic survival.