Bottom-Up Microfinance Plus as an Entry Point for Transformative Empowerment of Women and Climate Change Adaptation in the Smallholder Domain in Chimanimani, Zimbabwe

Abstract

Agriculture is the mainstay of rural communities, especially women, in Zimbabwe and the majority of Sub-Saharan Africa. However, smallholder agriculture in Zimbabwe is compounded with a myriad of challenges, including financial constraints and climate change leading to low productivity and food insecurity. Recent studies are increasingly showing the impact of climate change in the rural agriculture communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Further, there have been concerns about the role of microfinance in addressing the triple bottom lines of entrepreneurial sustainability, social and environmental impact. Lack of access to microfinance increases the vulnerability of smallholder farmers, especially women, to climate change. On the other hand, climate change reduces farmer access to microfinance services by making farming business riskier. However, the impacts of lack of access to microfinance and climate change are not equal between men and women farmers. The study grapples with the following research question. How can microfinance plus, i.e., the combination of financial with nonfinancial services, be an entry point to climate adaptation and empowerment of women? This is a paramount question as Zimbabwe is a patriarchal, multi-religion society with five ecological regions, two major and several ethnic groups, among other differences, and that the majority (60%) of smallholder farmers are women, a gender lens throughout the smallholder microfinance and climate adaptation intervention processes is crucial. Based on the evidence of gender differences and intersectionality in smallholder microfinance and climate change adaptation in Chimanimani, the researchers propose socially embedded microfinance plus as an entry point to support climate adaptation strategies and empower smallholder women to make strategic life choices in access and control of microfinance and adaptation strategies. The proposal moves away from an apolitical-technical understanding of climate change adaptation and microfinance to a more sociopolitical constructions emphasizing the gendered and power-laden processes and negotiations by all actors in the 11-smallholder farming assemblage.