Rural areas entitled to greater investment

18 May, 2014 - 00:05 0 Views
Rural areas entitled to greater investment A significant number of people moved from urban areas to acquire land during the land resettlement programme while more and more people are moving there for employment opportunities — Picture by Kudakwashe Hunda

The Sunday Mail

A significant number of people moved from urban areas to acquire land during the land resettlement programme  while more and more people are moving there for employment opportunities — Picture by Kudakwashe Hunda

A significant number of people moved from urban areas to acquire land during the land resettlement programme while more and more people are moving there for employment opportunities — Picture by Kudakwashe Hunda

A look at latest migration trends reveals that there has been an increase in the number of people in rural areas compared to urban settlements. According to the 2012 national population census results, 67 percent or 8,751 million of the 13,061 million Zimbabweans are said to be found in the rural areas.

“The Government must devote most of its energy and resources towards the development of rural areas where the majority of the Zimbabwean population now lives.

“Emphasis should be on the construction of schools, clinics and other infrastructural improvements,” said Dr Naomi Wekwete, a senior lecturer in the University of Zimbabwe’s Centre for Population Studies.

She said Government must have a proper plan that will satisfy the needs of the increased population in the rural areas.
“Apart from the urban to rural migration, Zimbabweans are also moving from one rural area to another. The majority of the people are moving from the former reserves to resettlement areas where there are better soils and good rainfall,” Dr Wekwete added.

She attributed the current urban to rural migration trend to the land reform programme, adding that people were running away from unemployment in urban areas.

“A significant number of people moved from urban areas to acquire land during the land resettlement programme.
“More and more people are moving to the rural areas since there are employment opportunities there as compared to urban centres,” Dr Wekwete said.

ZimStat’s findings show that more than 50 percent of the total productive population is employed in the agricultural sector.
The findings also stated that “42 percent of the employed people in Zimbabwe are communal and farm workers.”

Dr Wekwete said the urban to rural migration is good for the country since major urban centres are struggling to cope with problems that are associated with unplanned population growth.

“Let us look at Harare, for example. The capital city is failing to cope with the major population growth since the infrastructure that is currently in use was designed to cater for a much smaller population. The urban-rural migration will de-congest urban centres,” she added.
Another population expert argues that signs of urban to rural migration in Zimbabwe began to show in the early 1980s.

According to a paper presented by Deborah Potts of the Geography Department at King’s College, United Kingdom, Zimbabweans contemplated moving out of the urban areas to settle in the rural areas as early as the 1980s.

Part of Potts’ presentation read: “By 2001, only 13 percent felt sure they would stay in town, compared to about one third in the 1980s. There was no doubt that these patterns were primarily caused by the economic problems and insecurity of urban life.”

“Hundreds of interviews repeatedly explained how lack of secure employment and reasonable incomes in relation to necessary survival costs  and the threat of destitution if income streams failed were the reasons they anticipated an eventual move out of Harare.”World turning urban
The world is steadily turning urban as people move to the cities and towns where higher living standards are often a result of higher employment and educational opportunities. By 2005, urban areas were said to be home to more than half of the world’s 6,4 billion people and it is estimated that the numbers are increasing as people seek better living standards and reducing poverty.

Currently, 74 percent of Latin American and Caribbean populations live in urban areas, as do 73 percent of people in Europe.
The United Nations says while there are variations between individual countries, in both Africa and Asia, urban dwellers represent about a third of the total populations. In Africa, for example, urban areas in countries such as Algeria, South Africa and Tunisia are now home to half of their populations and the trend is unstoppable as other nations are witnessing a fast trend of rural to urban migration.

By the turn of the century, 261 cities in developing countries had populations of over 1 million each, compared with 213 cities in the mid-1990s. “In 1994, there were 14 so-called “mega-cities,” defined as cities with at least 10 million inhabitants. Their number is expected to double by 2015,” projects the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Urban areas are absorbing surrounding areas and growing into mega-cities.
okyo has nine million residents, its metropolitan area housing 35 million people. This makes it the world’s largest mega-city.
In Africa, Egypt’s capital city Cairo is the largest mega-city with a projection of 13 million people by 2015.

Urbanisation usually accompanies social and economic development, but rapid urban growth on today’s scale strains the capacity of local and national governments to provide even the most basic of services such as water, electricity and sewerage.

Squatter settlements and over-crowded slums are home to tens of millions, like the favelas that cling to the hillsides of Rio de Janeiro and the tombs used as homes by tens of thousands in Cairo’s “City of the Dead”.

In some developing countries, notably in Africa, this growth reflects rural crisis rather than urban-based development.

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