Poverty rates (below 3.10 USD/day) are extremely high (ranges from 60-98%) and components of multidimensional poverty (school dropout, poor health, food insecurity, unemployment) demonstrate highly vulnerable communities.

The main challenges facing agricultural production are climate change induced drought expensive inputs beyond the reach many smallholder farmers, inadequate draft power, migration of productive labour to urban centres and across borders to eke for living.

Communities in rural areas in Zimbabwe have for some time now been side-lined in accessing financial services from the various finance houses in the country. Terms for accessing loans are too stringent and unfavorable for the rural communities. On the other hand, finance houses perceive rural communities as “unbankable” and poor hence any banking and micro loan operations would not be viable. Regardless of the fact that some smallholder farmers’ net-worth is more than some urbanites, these remain segregated when in comes to accessing loans. 

The Zimbabwe economy has been experiencing an economic decline that has resulted in an inflation rate of 231 million percent and an unemployment rate of over 90 percent over the past two decades. The economic decline of Zimbabwe has mainly been caused by poor monetary policies and failure of fiscal policies to control the budget deficit. This has adversely impacted the smallholder farmers who have apart from failing to access the expensive farming inputs are also faced marketing challenges for the produce that they may have. Household incomes for smallholder farmers have also been affected by the aforementioned challenges.

High levels of vulnerability and marginalisation are especially noted among women and people living with disability. These groups rarely own any assets which makes them more vulnerable to economic shocks. At the same time, women are predominantly the breadwinners in most programme districts and also bring up the children and take care of household work. Men are increasingly migrating to urban areas to find employment or are unemployed due to diminishing employment opportunities in the formal sector. Despite women being the breadwinners, uneducated women have limited power in decision-making both in the family and in the community and are often told what to do by men.

Lack knowledge and skills in business development and savings in smallholder households.

Weak market linkages and market development (limited access to markets & limited market growth)

Negative effects of climate change: The organization is promoting climate smart entrepreneurship through creation of green enterprises. Recognizing the severe threat of climate change and environmental degradation, we also work to promote sustainable and green enterprises. Our definition of a green enterprise relates to four main areas where we believe the key to long term sustainability lies:
1) small scale enterprises within the sectors of agriculture;
2) forestry and agroforestry;
3) renewable energy; and
4) waste management. We also aspire to contribute to a resilient and environmentally sustainable society. To do this, the organization works to create “green enterprises” – small scale enterprises that are adaptive and/or mitigative, improves the climate change resilience of the enterprise and increase the income generation of the entrepreneur. By extension, individuals employed in a green enterprise become holders of green jobs.