Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of a Doctor of Technology: Business Administration Degree, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2014. / The study assesses the impact of trade and economic liberalisation policy reforms on the operations of selected manufacturing small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in Zimbabwe, and then compares the findings with experiences from South Africa’s SMEs. Motivation for the study was premised on two fronts. Zimbabwe and South Africa are currently faced with high unemployment rates (80% for Zimbabwe and 25% for South Africa). It therefore follows that job creation and poverty alleviation are the two pressing challenges facing the governments of Zimbabwe and South Africa. Secondly, the governments of Zimbabwe and South Africa have identified SMEs as the engines of economic growth with a special focus on addressing the twin challenges of unemployment and poverty alleviation. The roles and hopes bestowed on SMEs calls for a thriving and vibrant SME sector. On the other hand the adoption of trade liberalisation policies in the two countries has led some analysts to cast doubts on the ability of SMEs to withstand the fierce competition from established Multi-National Corporations and cheap imports. Employing a combined qualitative-quantitative approach, the study finds that trade and economic liberalisation policy had a negative impact on the operations of manufacturing small to medium enterprises in both Zimbabwe and South Africa. Cash-strapped SMEs have been strangled by resource-rich Multi-National Corporations. So dire is the situation that in the absence of significant government intervention, SMEs face an uncertain future. Compounding the matter is the fact that most SMEs in two countries are not involved in exports due to lack of knowledge and resources. The innovativeness ability of most SMEs remains very low. The study does not find significant differences on the impact of trade liberalisation policy reforms between SMEs in Zimbabwe and those in South Africa. It is recommended that the governments of Zimbabwe and South Africa need to introduce incentives to encourage SMEs to export and thus employ more people. Governments in Zimbabwe and South Africa need to factor in the transfer of technology to SMEs as one of the clauses when they negotiate the entry conditions of MNCs. In addition, the governments in Zimbabwe and South Africa must reintroduce tariffs in certain critical sectors of the economy to curtail cheap imports. It is cautioned that failure to protect SMEs could jeopardise the survival of most SMEs in Zimbabwe and South Africa, translating into increased unemployment, poverty and unequal wealth distribution.

Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) have occupied a prominent role in the development of rural Zimbabwe since the time of its independence in 1980. NGO work in Zimbabwe currently takes place within the context of a tense and fluid political climate, an economy struggling to recover from crisis, international skepticism toward long-term donor investment in development, and global expectations about the methodologies and accountability measures carried out in intervention-based development work. In the light of the participatory methodologies and empowerment-based development frameworks that dominate the current global expectations for work within the NGO sector, this thesis focuses on the work of one particular NGO working in Zimbabwe, namely, World Vision. The main objective of the thesis is to understand and explain the participatory methods, accountability and effectiveness of World Vision in Zimbabwe (with particular reference to Umzingwane District) and, in doing so, to deepen the theoretical understanding of NGOs as constituting a particular organizational form. World Vision is a large-scale international NGO that has a pronounced presence in Zimbabwe and it is specifically active in Umzingwane District in Matabeleland South Province. The thesis argues that NGOs exist within a complex and tense condition entailing continuous responses to pressures from donors and states that structure their survival. Ultimately, in maneuvering through such pressures, NGOs tend to choose directions which best enable their own sustainability, often at the cost of the deep participatory forms that may heighten the legitimacy of their roles. World Vision Zimbabwe responds to donor trends, national and local expectations of the state and its own organizational expectations by building local government capacity in order to maintain the longevity and measureable outputs of its projects. In doing so, it redefines the concept of participation in pursuing efficient and practical approaches to ‘getting things done’. This compromises deep participatory methodologies and, in essence, alters the practices involved in participatory forms in order to maintain World Vision’s own organizational sustainability and presence in Zimbabwe.

A vibrant and an efficient agricultural sector would enable a country to feed its growing population, generate employment, earn foreign exchange and provide raw materials for industries. The agricultural sector has a multiplier effect on any nation's socio-economic and industrial fabric because of the multifunctional nature of agriculture. The main objective of this study was to investigate how government expenditure on agriculture has affected economic growth in Zimbabwe from 1980-2009. The Log linear growth regression model was employed where gross domestic gross was the dependant variable and the explanatory variables are the factors which affect it which include government agricultural expenditure. The expenditures of government on agriculture were divided into three functions namely extension, credit assistance and R & D. The regression analyses were performed using Econometric-views 7 (E-views 7) statistical package. Regression was carried out on time series data for the period 1980 to 2009. The data was tested for stationarity and for autocorrelation. Problems of non stationarity of data were corrected by integrating the trending series. Results from the empirical analysis provide strong evidence indicating that agriculture is an engine of economic growth. The results from this study suggest that spending more on agricultural research and development can improve economic growth and ultimately reduce poverty. However, it can also be concluded that insufficient government agricultural expenditure on extension and credit assistance adversely affected economic growth in Zimbabwe, based on the results of the study. Global experience with pro-poor growth and empirical work spanning India, Benin and Malawi demonstrates the importance of agricultural expenditure for poverty reduction in poor rural areas, while also pointing to the need for complementary non farm sector growth. This study also proposes a simple methodology to estimate the agricultural spending that will be required to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015 (MDG1) in Zimbabwe. This method uses growth poverty and growth expenditure elasticities to estimate the financial resources required to meet the MDG1. The study attempts to address a key knowledge gap by improving estimation of first MDG agricultural expenditure at country level.

PHDGS / Institute for Gender and Youth Studies / This study examines the views, understandings, beliefs and practices on the effects of drought and how women cope in this regard. Feminist theories such as the Standpoint theory, Intersectionality, Ecofeminism and Social Construction were used to conceptualize the gender roles and practices that continue to hinder equity between men and women. This study was qualitative in design. The population of the study comprised of men and women living in Shashe village. A total number of people interviewed was 24, 6men and 6 women from focus group and 12 participants for individual participants. A purposive sample of participants was drawn from the population of farmers. The researchers targeted farmers, who are affected by erratic rainfall. The data was analysed using thematic analysis. The themes that emananted from the study were; environmental effects, economic effects, food scarcity, health effects, distribution of gender roles and coping strategies to drought. The findings showed that there were paradigm shifts in terms of gender relations with regard to drought in many villages, townships and cities today. Furthermore, cultural patterns embedded in patriarchal relationships are accommodating forms of relationships which are not favourable to women. The study recommends that farmers should also have other sources to generate income other than farming because of the changing weather patterns and also to educate women in all dimensions of agriculture so that they are well informed. / NRF

The thesis examined the comprehensive causal relationship between the banking sector, stock market development and economic growth in a multi-variate framework using Zimbabwean time series data from 1988 to 2015. Three banking sector development proxies (total financial sector credit, banking credit to private sector and broad money M3) and three stock market development proxies (stock market capitalization, value traded and turnover ratio) were employed to estimate both long and short run relationships between banking sector, stock market and economic growth in Zimbabwe. The study employs the vector error correction model (VECM) as the main estimation technique and the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach as a robustness testing technique. Results showed that in Zimbabwe a significant causal relationship from banking sector and stock market development to economic growth exists in the long run without any feedback effects. In the short run, however, a negative yet statistically significant causal relationship runs from economic growth to banking sector and stock market development in Zimbabwe. The study further concludes that there is a unidirectional causal relationship running from stock market development to banking sector development in Zimbabwe in both short and long run periods. Nonetheless this relationship between banking sector and stock markets has been found to be more significant in the short run than in the long run. The thesis adopts the complementary view and recommends for the spontaneity implementation of monetary policies as the economy grows. Monetary authorities should thus formulate policies to promote both banks and stock markets with corresponding growth in Zimbabwe’s economy. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)

This study examines the public debt, public debt service and economic growth nexus in Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa using time-series data from 1970 to 2017. This research provides empirical evidence to contribute, firstly, to the ongoing public policy debate regarding the dynamic relationship between public debt, public debt service and economic growth, and their causal relationship; and secondly, to the relative impact of domestic and foreign public debt on economic growth in the selected study countries. For this purpose, four empirical models were utilised and estimated using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds to cointegration and the error correction ARDL-based causality test. Model 1 explored the impact of aggregate public debt on economic growth, while Model 2 investigated the relative impact of domestic and foreign public debt on economic growth. Model 3 examined the impact of public debt service on economic growth, whereas the causality between aggregate public debt and economic growth, and between public debt service and economic growth is tested in Model 4a and Model 4b, respectively. Results show that in Model 1, aggregate public debt has a positive impact on economic growth in Zambia but is negative in Zimbabwe and South Africa. In Model 2, domestic public debt negatively impacts economic growth in Zambia and Zimbabwe and positive impact in South Africa. In addition, foreign public debt has a positive impact on economic growth in Zambia and negative impact in Zimbabwe and South Africa. The results from Model 3 largely support a negative relationship between public debt service and economic growth in Zambia and Zimbabwe, and an insignificant relationship in South Africa. The causality results for Model 4a indicate that it is economic growth that drives public debt in all the study countries. Finally, no causal relationship between public debt service and economic growth was confirmed in all the study countries (Model 4b). / Economics / D. Phil. (Economics)

The study explored the extent of women’s economic empowerment for sustainable livelihoods through the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) in Zimbabwe, focusing on three wards in the Makoni district. The study addressed the paucity of information on the usefulness of land redistribution on women’s improved food security and disposable income. Using a qualitative case study, the researcher purposefully selected thirty female land beneficiaries to participate in focus group discussions and five land officers from government departments to be interviewed as key informants. Findings reveal that the FTLRP generally meant that men accessed more land than women. Women’s livelihood initiatives were hampered by their failure to access sufficient support from the government and external partners. Despite the government signing various charters purported to support women’s empowerment, there is still a lot to be done to achieve it. / Lolu cwaningo lwaluhlola izinga lwamandla okuthuthukiswa komnotho kwabesifazane ukuze kube nokuphila okusimeme ngokusebenzisa Uhlelo Lokusheshiswa Kokuguqulwa Komhlaba eZimbabwe, lugxile ezigcemeni ezintathu eMkhandlwini waseMakoni. Lolu cwaningo lwethula ukuntuleka kolwazi ngokubaluleka kokubuyiswa komhlaba kabusha okumayelana nokuvikelwa kokuthuthukiswa nokuphepha kokudla kwabesifazane nokuthola imali engenayo. Ukusebenzisa ucwaningo lwesigameko olubhekene nobungako bento, umcwaningi wakhetha ngenhloso abazuzi noma abahlomuli besifazane bomhlaba abangamashumi amathathu ukuba babambe iqhaza ezigxoxweni zeqembu ezigxile kokuthize kanye nenhlolokhono nezikhulu zomhlaba ezinhlanu ezivela eminyangweni kahulumeni njengabantu ababalulekile. Kuye kwatholakala ukuthi Uhlelo Lokusheshiswa Kokuguqulwa Komhlaba luchaza ukuthi abesilisa yibona abahlomula kakhulu ukudlula abesifazane. Izindlela zokuphila zabesifazane zavinjelwa ukwehluleka kwabo ekutholeni uxhaso olwanele oluvela kuhulumeni kanye nabambisane nabo abangaphandle. Ngaphandle kokuba uhulumeni asayinde incwadi ewumqulu enikezelana ngelungelo noma amandla okubhekiswe ekusekeleni kokuxhaswa kokuthukiswa kwabesifazane, kuningi okusamelwe kwenziwe ukufezekisa lombono. / Esi sifundo saqwalasela ubungakanani bokuxhotyiswa kwabafazi ngamandla ezoqoqosho abawanikwa ngenkqubo ekuthiwa yiFast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) eZimbabwe, kugxininiswa kwiiwadi ezintathu ezikwisithili saseMakoni. Esi sifundo salungisa ukunqaba kolwazi olumalunga nokuba luncedo konikezelo lomhlaba malunga nokuphuculwa kokuqinisekiswa kokutya nemivuzo yabafazi. Ngokusebenzisa isifundo esigxila kumgangatho ngokuthatha imizekelo yeemeko ezithile, umphandi wakhetha ngononophelo abafazi abangamashumi abathathu nababenikwe umhlaba, wabasebenzisa kwiingxoxo zamaqela, waqhuba udliwano ndlebe namagosa eSebe lezemihlaba. Okwafunyaniswayo kwadiza ukuba ngokweFTLRP amadoda afumana umhlaba omninzi ngaphezu kwabafazi. Intlalo nempilo yabafazi iqhwaleliswa kukungafumani kwabo inkxaso eyaneleyo kurhulumente nakumaqabane karhulumente angaphandle. Nangona urhulumente etyikitya izivumelwano ezininzi ezithi uxhobisa abafazi, kusekuninzi ekufuneka kwenziwe ukuze iphumelele loo njongo. / Development Studies / M.A. (Development Studies)