Dissertation submitted to the University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management in partial fulfilment of the requirement of the degree of MASTER OF COMMERCE IN DEVELOPMENT THEORY AND POLICY University of the Witwatersrand Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management School of Economics and Business Sciences – SEBS Corporate Strategy and Industrial Development (CSID) / Zimbabwe’s mineral sector has been the major contributor of the national economy’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) since the economic meltdown post land reform programme. The scale of the crisis resulted in the adoption of the multicurrency system in 2009. In an attempt to save the economy from total collapse the government has turned to the mining sector to establish linkages through mineral beneficiation. This study has analysed whether the creation of linkages in the mineral sector, through beneficiation and value addition, could resuscitate the economy. Literature on natural resources shows that countries that are resource-rich experience slow growth rates than resource-poor countries. The study found that mineral resource dependency could be a platform or foundation for economic growth and developmental opportunities through linkages creation in the mineral sector. However, resource-based development strategy is a challenging development path that needs a strong state with vested capacity to actively direct and co-ordinate economic transformation through deepening of the resource sector. Political tensions in Zimbabwe are the overriding obstacles to economic linkages creation in the mining sector and across other sectors. It is therefore, imperative to understand the socio-economic and political dynamics and interactions that influence and shape policy decisions, implementation and their outcomes in order for Zimbabwe to optimise economic linkages and revive its economy. / MT2017

A research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master’s Degree in Development Theory and Policy, March 2017 / It has been the objective of the Zimbabwean government since 2009 to arrest deindustrialisation, embody reindustrialisation as the essence for development and structural transformation from production of primary goods to manufacturing of value added goods for the domestic and export market. The President of Zimbabwe traversed that “industrialization is the essence of development, industrial production creates job opportunities at higher skill levels, facilitates more useful links across the agricultural, mining and service sectors, between rural and urban economies, and across consumer, intermediate and capital goods industries” (Ministry of Industry and Commerce, 2012: v). As such one of the economic components, through which re-industrialisation is envisioned is the value-addition of cotton through supporting downstream industries in textiles and clothing. This objective has been seen gradually through all of its policies post crisis or since dollarization. This is illustrated for example in the in the Short Term Emergency Recovery Programme (STERP) of 2009 were textiles and ginning are identified under strategically targeted industries. In the Industrial Development Policy of 2012 -2016, it is also stated that “whilst in Zimbabwe it might appear that the industrial value chain is complete; in sectors such as cotton, iron and steel and sugar, the level of transformation beyond primary processing still needs to be enhanced” [and so] “the Government has identified four (4) priority sectors as the pillars and engine for this IDP 2012–2016, namely Agri-business (Food and beverages, Clothing and Textiles, Leather & Footwear and Wood and Furniture)….”, (Ministry of Industry and Commerce, 2012: 11,17). With this background in mind, the broader problem this research is trying to solve is how the government through its objectives has sort to address de-industrialisation and re-industrialize through support of value addition and upgrading processes. Therefore, my research will focus on the evolution of cotton to textiles value chain and investigate how much value-addition has been employed to cotton products locally and for exports but only up to the point of textiles; what market conditions, forces and industry initiatives/strategies influenced the attempts to increase value added, and how successful or not these have been ; what policies both broader industrial and macroeconomic and sector-specific policies are in place or have been implemented to support the growth of cotton to textiles value added or shifting into higher value added production and what the impact of the cotton to textile industry has been towards industrial development. / XL2018

Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Media Studies, 2016 / Many African countries have been holding regular elections since the “Third Wave” of democratisation which reintroduced multi-party politics on the African continent, but few of these elections meet the democratic litmus test, due to, among other factors, the prevalence of election violence. The press has been justifiably or unjustifiably indicted for these imbroglios on account of alleged transgressions linked to its overt or covert incitement to violence. In the ensuing political contestations, citizens bear the burden of diminished prospects of credible information occasioned by a highly politicised press. In the Southern African region, there is no better case to illustrate the entanglement of the press in electoral contestations than Zimbabwe. This study is a qualitative exploration of press and citizen discourses on election violence during the presidential and parliamentary elections held in Zimbabwe between 2000 and 2013. A Foucauldian discursive analytic approach was used to analyse the representation of election violence in two-state-owned and four privately-owned newspapers during presidential and parliamentary elections held over the specified period spanning thirteen years. The study also examined how these press discourses interrelate with citizen discourses. Empirical data were drawn from a corpus of archival textual data comprising hard news and feature articles published in The Herald, The Sunday Mail, The Zimbabwe Independent, The Financial Gazette, Newsday and the Daily News. In-depth interviews were conducted with purposively targeted journalists and editors from the selected newspapers. In addition, in-depth-interviews were held with twenty-one (21) regular newspaper readers who were also politically engaged citizens. The main observation was that press representation of election violence was marked by antagonistic discursive practices reflective of the rivulets of political and ideological bifurcation. Consequently, competing and politically expedient journalistic philosophies emerged. The state-owned press used a model of ‘national interest’ journalism while the privately-owned press preferred the ‘human-rights’ model which crystallized into an over-arching ‘activist journalism’. This ‘activist’ journalistic approach found expression through an array of anti-democratic press discursive practices epitomised by selectivity, silence and salience, the consequence of which was that citizens were starved of credible and impartial information. This thesis argues that the anti-democratic discursive practices deployed by the press camps blunted the citizenry’s critical engagement with the exact motivations, causes and manifestations of election violence. These anti-democratic discursive practices have a potential to engender a culture of political intolerance with long-term consequences that predispose society to political conflict rather than consensus building. / MT2017

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 50% fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Management (in the field of Public Policy). February 2017 / The government of Zimbabwe embarked on a land redistribution programme at the turn of the twentieth century. The programme has been mired in controversy which has culminated in polarisation. The major objective of the land redistribution was to redress historical imbalances and to increase food security by increasing access to fertile and arable land to indigenous people. Due to lack of policy clarity and consensus, the programme has so far been a huge failure. This study sought to interrogate the policy implementation and how this had impacted on productivity on the A1 model of farming in Zimbabwe. Results showed that the programme was adversely affected by lack of political will and lack of policy clarity while it was clogged with political interference. The government had failed to provide sustainable funding to enhance productivity. This had led to despondency among civil servants and beneficiaries of the land reform programme. There is ineffective implementation of policy due to factors such as lack of experienced personnel and unavailability of funding. Polarisation has seen other key stakeholders shunning this programme. Under the prevailing socio-political environment, this programme is set to be an outright failure to enhance food security sustainability. The study unpacked valuable impediments which inevitably, were drivers of poor attainment of the objectives of model A1 farming in Zimbabwe. / MT 2017

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctoral Thesis submitted to the School of Language, Literature and Media Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; in fulfillment of the requirements for the award of PhD in Media Studies 2015 / This study blends critical discourse analysis with ethnographic inquiry into the nature of discursive constructions of subaltern identities in postcolonial contexts of news production by mainstream news organisations in colonial and post-independence Zimbabwe. The main thrust of the study was to establish continuities and disjunctures in newsroom cultures of production in colonial and in post-independence situations in which marginalized former colonial subject populations are caught up. It employs a multidimensional synchronic and diachronic case study approach where one newspaper organization specifically The Herald’s coverage of episodic forced removals of subject populations is studied across different historical moments. The paper’s coverage is then critically compared and contrasted with that of other newspapers then in existence and contemporaneously operating at that time. The selected historical moments of forced removals were only heuristically chosen to the extent that they demonstrated the greatest potential for drawing media attention and thus present an opportunity for the ordinary subaltern populations to appear in the news. The content analysis generally tended to demonstrate that the same canibalesque evident in the newsification of subjects of colonial domination was pretty much evident in the way news in the post-independence period constructed the subalternity of marginalized groups. The institutionalization of the so called universal news values tend towards symbolic annihilation of subaltern ways of knowing. The newspaper as a cultural form, this study established, remains ill-suited and instrumentalised to serve the ends of emancipation and empowerment. The press in Zimbabwe retain many traces of its colonial parentage with serious negative ramifications for their claim to a democratic function

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 2015 / The timing of conflict resolution efforts is important in identifying when an intervention is likely to succeed according to ripeness of conflicts theory (Zartman, 1985). Although the ripeness theory appears to be a great contribution to the conflict resolution doctrine, there is no scholarly consensus on its plausibility with criticisms that are centred on: a contest on the variables that should help in its identification; low predictability; lack of cross-case generalisations; and, methodological weaknesses inherited from rational and public choice theories. The study took the position that conditions creating ripeness should be expanded beyond what is currently obtaining in literature, can help in determining the formula for resolution and indicate what to do in the implementation of the agreement so reached. To interrogate the theory’s plausibility, interpretivism was used to gather evidence from the case - the conflict that prevailed in Zimbabwe from 2000 to 2013 - to extrapolate implications for the ripeness theory and suggest improvements through paradigm complementarity. Although the external dimension of the conflict in Zimbabwe remained unaffected, ripeness was found in its domestic setting deriving from the indecisive/disputed elections of 2008 and the threat of a failed economy that triggered a Southern African Development Community intervention and offered a cue to the formula for resolution - the Global Political Agreement. Shared political legitimacy in the Global Political Agreement however saw that ripeness diminishing and it had vanished by 2013, although the conflict which by 2013 was yet to realise complete resolution, was to a large extent transformed to lower levels of hostilities with dysfunctionality temporarily arrested. Ripeness proved to be a product of both perceptual and structural variables that change in intensity over time, thus affecting the implementation of agreements that arise from ripeness. The study proved that ripeness theory in its expanded form is a viable strategic tool in conflict resolution, though success as in military doctrine depends on the accurate identification of the variables creating ripeness, timely intervention and a fitting operational plan to effectively exploit the opportunities so created. / MB2016

Abstract available on PDF file. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

There is persistence of rural poverty in African countries despite efforts by governments to implement community development projects to curb poverty in impoverished rural communities. Zimbabwe adopted the Poverty Alleviation Action Plan (PAAP) under which community development programme was initiated. Community development projects by NGOs and government did not manage to meet the needs of the impoverished communities in Mvuma rural communities. More so, the incremental approach to policy making adopted by the government of Zimbabwe failed to embrace the principles of community development, for example, participation of community projects beneficiaries on everything that impact to their way of living. Despite all the efforts to alleviate rural poverty in Mvuma rural district there is still persistence of rural poverty, characterized by poor roads and struggling of most families to meeting basic needs. Mvuma rural communities are rich in mineral resources and water sources that can be utilized instead of relying on external resources through NGOs. This therefore, calls on the government and NGOs to collaborate towards capacitating Mvuma rural dwellers in order to help alleviate poverty. This study employed qualitative approach to research as it was aimed at describing and understanding rather than explaining human behaviour. Purposive or judgmental sampling was applied. This technique was used as the researcher wanted to get hold of the people who are directly or indirectly linked to implementation of community development projects. However, quantitative method was used to gather demographic information. The PAAP policy relevance to poverty reduction in Mvuma rural district and in Zimbabwe in general was the heart of this study.

The issue of human settlements has recently gained much momentum particularly in cities across the world due to rapid rates of urbanization. The housing crisis is manifesting mostly in the cities of the developing countries; the urban poor population is left with no option, they are continuously living in substandard and unsustainable housing conditions due to the desperate housing need. There is a growing trend of migration into urban centers in the developing countries as well as natural population increase in the cities. The inevitable development is the rapid growth of urbanization. The theories on urbanization suggest that the responsible government and local council authorities must be prepared to address socio-economic issues such as the provision of formal housing, infrastructure development and employment creation. The governments in developing countries are struggling to balance economic development and the provision of social services. As a result, the human settlement sector is suffering lack of prioritization when it comes to budget and resource allocation. The resultant factors are the overcrowding of the urban population, high housing backlogs and dilapidation of infrastructure visible mostly in the major cities of the developing countries.

This study first explored the rate of forest deforestation in Shamva resettlement areas. It then identified and estimated the extent to which these resettled farmers depend on forest for their livelihoods. Evaluation of farmer perceptions on management issues and willingness to participate in indigenous forest conservation and the socio-economic and institutional factors which affect their willingness to participate were also done. Finally the study sought to identify incentives for forests conservation. The study was conducted in Shamva district in Mashonaland Central province. And the respondents were stratified into three groups: A1, A2 and Old resettlement models. The three models differ on how they were implemented and supported which might render them to have different deforestation rates, livelihood strategies and forest dependency. A total of 247 respondents were surveyed, consisting of 98 A1 farmers, 50 A2 farmers and 99 Old resettled farmers. The data was collected using GIS and remote sensing, structured questionnaire interviews and direct observation. The data was analysed using descriptive analysis, KAP analytic framework and binary logistic regression analysis. The land cover/changes results revealed that both deforestation and afforestation are taking place in Shamva resettlement. Woodland and bushland were decreasing, croplands were also decreasing. However woodland dense and grasslands were increasing. Deforestation was found to be as a result of the resettled farmers’ livelihood strategies which were found to be diverse and agriculture being dominant in all models. All the farmers depended on the forest but at varying levels of 19 percent for Old and 14 percent forA1 and 0.02 percent for A2 resettle farmers. 84 percent of the interviewed farmers however, indicated that they are willing to conserve forest with A1 farmers being the highest followed by A2 86 percent and lastly Old resettled farmers at 76.8 percent. Results of the binary regression model revealed that the significant factors which explain willingness to participate in indigenous forest conservation are age, marital status, education, gender, institution, culture and belief, employment and household size. The highest preferred incentive was the provision of free seedlings and the lowest was out grower scheme. The study recommends that GIS and remote sensing should be used to monitor deforestation, off farm projects be encouraged, exotic and indigenous trees be promoted and forest conservation education be promoted in resettlement areas.