Urban household food insecurity and cash transfers in Bulawayo townships, Zimbabwe

Abstract

Urban household food insecurity is highly prevalent in Zimbabwe due to the persisting poor macro-economic environment, droughts, HIV and AIDS and climate change. This paper examines the effectiveness of cash transfers in alleviating urban household food insecurity in the city of Bulawayo. The assessment focuses on understanding the extent to which cash transfers improve poor households’ access to food. The study was conducted in Makokoba and Njube townships. A combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods were used in gathering and analysing data. Purposive sampling techniques were used to select study participants. Semi-structured in-depth interviews (50), questionnaires (280), and key-informant interviews (11) were used to collect primary data. The study is anchored on Sen’s Entitlement Approach in examining the role of cash transfers in strengthening trade-based entitlements of ultra-poor households. We find that cash transfers have nominally alleviated urban household food insecurity in these townships. Households receiving cash transfers have not meaningfully improved access to food on a regular basis. They ate small quantities of food, skipped meals and had poor dietary diversity regardless of receiving cash transfers. Factors such as low transfer value, irregular distributions, weak targeting mechanisms, disbursement mechanism and poor communication have deterred the effectiveness of cash transfers in the two townships. We recommend a revamp in design and implementation processes of cash transfer programmes. Transfers meant for improving access to food should be implemented in conjunction with livelihood projects to enable poor urbanites to meet non-food basic needs.

Keywords

• urban food insecurity
• cash transfers
• food access
• food consumption
• bulawayo
• zimbabwe