What Do We Know About Poverty and Climate Change Relationship? Exploring Precipitation Uncertainty and Climate Change Implications on Rural Poverty in Zimbabwe (English)

Like other countries in the globe, Zimbabwe set targets on poverty eradication in a changing climate yet the implication of climate change on poverty has not been explored. The paper utilizes PICES datasets, descriptive statistics, and simple regression to explore the association between poverty prevalence and climate change indicators. The findings, surprisingly, reveal that poverty prevalence is lower in the semi-arid districts where precipitation uncertainty is higher than in districts with less volatile precipitation. The implication of the results is that an increase in precipitation uncertainty due to climate change does not always mean an increase in poverty prevalence as argued by previous studies. Districts that rely more on rain-fed agriculture suffer more from climate change impacts. Nevertheless, long term-climate change induced precipitation uncertainty drives rural people into diversification. The main policy implication is that policies to promote diversification of local economies can go a long way in reducing climate change-induced poverty. Government policies in Zimbabwe have been biased towards promotion of agriculture in rural communities. Yet poverty has remained high in these rural communities and the situation may be worsened by a changing climate in the future. Local employment creation through upscaling the growth point concept, industrialization through local value addition, and exportation of excess labor (e.g., teaching and nursing) can diversify income sources and improve remittance inflows in these rural communities.