‘Streamline value chains to combat climate issues’

It comes as the country has lately grappled with the realities of climate change in the form of droughts, prolonged dry spells, intense tropical storms and other extreme weather events.

“For as long as we cannot recognise the importance of integrating value chains, it becomes a problem because we still work in linear value chains,” WBCSD executive director, Dingane Sithole said at the 12th Africa Green Waste and Energy Expo held in Harare recently.

“When value chains are linear, it means they are not resilient, but once they are integrated that means some environmental climate issues can feed into another value chain in a symbiotic manner.”

Zimbabwe’s climate is predominantly semi-arid and extremely variable and prone to shifting rainfall patterns, droughts and periodic floods in certain parts of the country, which has severe implications for climate-sensitive economic sectors and food security.

Climate change is exacerbating these problems with the rising frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. The 2015/2016 El Nino event caused a significant drought, which was declared a state of disaster and left over 4,1 million people in need of food support.

These impacts of climate change have prompted all countries around the world, including Zimbabwe to push towards lowering carbon emissions.

A University of Zimbabwe professor in the faculty of agriculture, Brighton Mvumi, highlighted the sub-Saharan African agriculture industry was losing about US$4 billion due to a lack of value chain integration.

He added that the world gets a lot of greenhouse emissions from rotting food globally, hence the need for value chain integration to combat environmental climate issues and reduce carbon emissions.

“A lot of resources are pumped into production, and the post-harvest side doesn’t seem to be looked at seriously. We are saying about a third of the food that is produced globally is lost and in Sub-Saharan Africa only it translates to US$4,1 billion worth of food that is lost.

“At the same time, we are always getting food aid, we have hungry people every time, and we have a big gap there. These losses, like when you look at food waste, get a lot of greenhouse emissions from rotting food. There are a lot of opportunities there for intervention,” Mvumi said.

“Look at the public markets for example Mbare, you see piles of agricultural produce rotting there, that is a lot of fertilisers, and a lot of waste, energy that was pumped into the production and we are short-changing farmers.”

Mvumi noted that the rotting agricultural produce could be converted into bio-fertiliser, cooking gas out of that. It can also be used to generate livestock feed and generate employment. In its recent country outlook report, African Development Bank (AfDB), said Zimbabwe has prioritised private financing to achieve its climate change targets in transitioning to green and inclusive growth.

“The country is developing the National Climate Change Fund and Climate Finance Facility to crowd in the private sector through blended finance and results-based approaches to de-risk markets and scale up investment and boost participation in scaling up climate actions. Zimbabwe received about US$990 million in climate finance between 2010 and 2020, averaging US$90 million a year,” the AfDB said.

The AfDB said considering the significant challenge Africa faces due to climate change and the gap in climate finances, Africa can leverage its natural capital to finance a green transition.