RURAL WOMEN AND LIVELIHOODS: OPTIONS FOR POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN DROUGHT RISK AREAS OF BIKITA DISTRICT, ZIMBABWE

This paper examined the role of women in livelihoods for the reduction of poverty in drought risk areas of Zimbabwe, case of ward 5, Bikita district. There is an increase of rural women’s participation in economic activities to reduce poverty. The persistence of drought and economic collapse in Zimbabwe influenced the increased participation of rural women in productive activities. Rural women have become breadwinners in most households and have since adopted various livelihood activities to survive. These livelihoods should be able to cater for their daily household needs. A case study design was employed in this study. The study used questionnaires and semi-structured interviews as data collecting instruments. Livelihood activities found included seasonal farming, gardening, and money saving schemes, informal trading, and informal trading. Challenges faced contained within, persistent droughts, economic crisis, lack of economic opportunities, poor access to productive resources, erratic climatic changes and poor infrastructure and technological facilities. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0726/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

How can street routines inform state regulation? Learning from informal traders in Baclaran, Metro Manila

Informal vendors have occupied the streets of Metro Manila’s Baclaran district since the 1950s. Their presence has generated policies seeking to manage or banish street hawking. Years of street occupancy, however, have enabled the vendors to enforce grassroots mechanisms to appropriate streetscapes. In this paper, I analyse three routinised practices - the haging occupancy, the Bermonths routine and the various finance-generating schemes - that have enabled vendors to persist amidst the changing socio-political conditions. These practices capture the Baclaran hawkers’ insecure access to contested spaces, how they capitalise on a socio-temporal dimension of informality, how they cope with economic distress, and how they enforce a set of property rights arrangements. Understanding these grassroots practices, which are embedded in the precarity of street life, can inform responsive policies on urban informal trading.

Mobility nodes and economic spaces: Links, tensions and planning implications

While transport hubs function largely as mobility interchanges, they also serve as spaces of conflict and negotiation, particularly when informal livelihoods of poor populations take place in public spaces like streets and transport terminals. This condition poses challenges to urban planners and transport officials on how to promote inclusive cities without sacrificing urban mobility. We examine how informal trading has become embedded in the land-use patterns of Baclaran, a strategic transport hub in Metro Manila. Three factors emerge as critical in understanding how and why informal trading thrives in Baclaran: a) the presence of commuters as captive market; b) mixed land use and activity agglomeration; and c) multi-layered socio-spatial relations. Our empirical data also shows how normalized informal trading in a mobility node has triggered transport route diversion and supported the growth of small-scale informal transport.