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African city governments have generally been harsh on the informal sector. Informal traders are considered a nuisance and unworthy of government support and are subjected to severe regulations and police harassment. The paper frames this anti-informal-sector approach in Harare, Zimbabwe, as sovereign power and the informal traders' resistance as counterpower (after Foucault). We use the sustainable livelihoods approach (SLA. to analyze their response to sovereign power. Our interviews with 50 informal street traders and 20 key informants revealed that this counterpower takes the form of good business practices, building on urban–rural linkages and disobeying the current bylaws. The traders also actively avoid damage from police raids by being mobile, not displaying all their goods, setting out goods on a sheet for quick removal when threatened, storing goods elsewhere, and paying bribes for information about police activity. Our findings contradict the view of the informal sector traders as helpless victims of government brutality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Prostate cancer is one of the leading causes of death in Zimbabwe. However, screening for prostate cancer is opportunistic as population-based screening is not available. Objectives: This study aimed to describe the knowledge, attitudes and practices of men living in Harare, Zimbabwe relating to prostate cancer. Method: A door-to-door survey took place in Mufakose, Harare. Each household was included, and men, 40 years and older, were convenience sampled until realisation of the calculated sample size of 269 (n = 269). A researcher-administered questionnaire collected the data, analysis was performed with descriptive statistics, and Chi-square tested statistically significant differences between the variables. Results: The majority of the sample (53.2; n = 143) was between 40 years old and 49 years old. Most (74.5%; n = 201) did not know what prostate cancer was, but the total sample (100%; n = 269) indicated that prostate cancer could lead to death. Only 50.6% (n = 136) were of the opinion that men should be screened; most (87.7%; n = 236) had never been screened. A Chi-square test of independence found a statistically significant difference between educational level and having had prostate cancer screening, χ2 (1) = 47.881, p 0.000. Conclusion: As confirmed by other studies, the respondents had limited knowledge of prostate cancer, but had a positive attitude towards the disease, as most were willing to go for screening. There had been only a small percentage screened previously, and less than half returned to learn the results. Contribution: The study emphasises the role of primary health clinics as it could be an ideal setting to teach men about prostate cancer and its screening, and provide screening services in Zimbabwe.

Abstract Background Elemental lead (Pb) toxicity in children, irreversibly affects their growth and development. We assessed the prevalence of high blood Pb levels (BLL) in children living in a potentially high risk residential area and also assessed Pb levels in environmental specimens. Methods This cross sectional study measured blood lead levels (BLL) in 86children living in Mbare, a densely populated suburb in Harare, Zimbabwe, characterised by dwellings progressively constructed from 1907 through to the 1940s, before the ban of leaded paint. Study participants of both genders were under 6 years of age. Potential risk factors of Pb poisoning were assessed. Pb levels were also assessed in soil, water and paint chip specimens from the study area. Results The mean (standard deviation) BLL was 4.3 ± 0.75 g/dL. Twelve (13.95%) participants had BLL of > 5.0ug/dL. Our results showed no significant association between BLL and household income, participant behaviour/habits/activities, sources of drinking water, and the types of cookware used to prepare meals in their households. Conclusion Mean BLL observed in the current study were higher compared to those of children of similar age groups in the United States, suggesting that Pb contamination may be more ubiquitous in the Mbare flats area, potentially predisposing these children to impaired development.

Background: Elemental lead (Pb) toxicity in children, irreversibly affects their growth and development. We assessed the prevalence of high blood Pb levels (BLL) in children living in a potentially high risk residential area and also assessed Pb levels in environmental specimens. Methods: This cross sectional study measured blood lead levels (BLL) in 86children living in Mbare, a densely populated suburb in Harare, Zimbabwe, characterised by dwellings progressively constructed from 1907 through to the 1940s, before the ban of leaded paint. Study participants of both genders were under 6 years of age. Potential risk factors of Pb poisoning were assessed. Pb levels were also assessed in soil, water and paint chip specimens from the study area. Results: The mean (standard deviation) BLL was 4.3 ± 0.75 g/dL. Twelve (13.95%) participants had BLL of > 5.0ug/dL. Our results showed no significant association between BLL and household income, participant behaviour/habits/activities, sources of drinking water, and the types of cookware used to prepare meals in their households. Conclusion: Mean BLL observed in the current study were higher compared to those of children of similar age groups in the United States, suggesting that Pb contamination may be more ubiquitous in the Mbare flats area, potentially predisposing these children to impaired development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines changing attitudes to afternoon and evening meals during the Zimbabwean crisis between 1997 and 2020. It uses household food economics in Harare's high-density suburbs as an entry point into the historiography of the Zimbabwean crisis. By focusing on the management of household economics, the article analyses the affordability, typologies and naming of some meals or relishes that were eaten during the crisis period. It examines the vernacular concepts of tsaona meals that came to dominate afternoon and evening meals. It further analyses the ZANU(PF) government's authoritarian vegetarianism – in which it took a pseudo-decolonial stance as it attempted to re-teach Zimbabwean palates and bowels to consume traditional small grains and vegetables in the context of food shortages and the crisis. Overall, the article provides a sensorial history of meals in Harare's high-density suburbs during the Zimbabwean crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study discusses the human security costs and benefits generated by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic-induced state monopoly on the urban public transport system in Zimbabwe through the Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (ZUPCO) since March 2020. Using empirical evidence from Harare, it argues that the ZUPCO initiative had far-reaching safety and security implications on urban residents' lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study found that though the ZUPCO initiative mainly benefited commuters through affordable fares, it had many human security costs. The costs included reduced safety and decreased and unreliable services, which exposed the commuting public to the risk of contracting COVID-19 and other security challenges. The state monopoly on urban transport exacerbated the social and economic impact of COVID-19, promoted inequalities, police corruption and urban residents' use of informal transport services, which were unsafe and costly. The study concludes that the Zimbabwean government lacks the capacity to provide services in the urban transport sector, akin to nearly every sector in the country. As a stop-gap measure, the government is encouraged to regulate and allow private players to complement its efforts for the benefit, convenience, security, and safety of commuters until it develops an efficient urban public transport system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing household solid waste (HSW) has gone beyond what the Harare local government can handle. Inadequate knowledge of the interactions existing between issues that affect the efficient running of waste management systems is one of the major hindrances in waste management planning in developing countries like Zimbabwe. The complexity of the waste management system for a given municipal area needs to be identified and understood to generate appropriate and efficient waste management strategies. Network analysis (NA) is a methodology extensively used in research to help reveal a comprehensive picture of the relationships and factors related to a particular phenomenon. The methodology reduces the intricacy of large systems such as waste management to smaller and more understandable structures. In this study, NA, which was done mainly using the R software environment, showed a result of 1.5% for network density, thus signifying that for Harare, waste management strategies need to be 'seeded' in various parts of the system. The Pareto principle and the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) concept were applied to suggest the issues to prioritize and generate strategies that could potentially affect significant change to the city's waste management system. The key issues identified, in their order of importance, are an increase in uncollected waste, low waste collection efficiency, increase in illegal waste dumping, the deteriorating country's economy, reduced municipal financial capacity, reduced municipal workforce capacity, inadequate or unreliable waste data, increase in waste volume, increase in the number of street vendors, no waste planning and monitoring unit, no engineered landfills in the city, increase in waste collection pressure, low waste collection frequency, increase in the unemployment rate, reduced municipal technical capacity, few waste collection vehicles, limited vehicles maintenance, distinct socio-economic classes, high vehicles breakdown, and increase in population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household solid waste (HSW) is the largest municipal solid waste (MSW) produced in Harare. This type of waste is poorly managed, driven by various factors. To inform future studies towards designing more informed solutions to HSW management in the city, this literature study was formulated. The review aims to uncover the causes of poor HSW management in the city. The systematic review methodology using NVIVO was used to develop the review. The results showed that the most reported causes of poor HSW management and waste management system inefficiencies in Harare are increase in population and population density, poor formal solid waste disposal, increase in waste volumes, informal waste disposal, low waste collection frequency and efficiency, municipal incapacitation, among others. Future studies can utilize these results to estimate the complexity of this phenomenon and thus propose appropriate solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how geographical location contributes to the social exclusion of communities on the fringes of the city. It uses a case study of Southlea Park, a low-income settlement on the southern periphery of Harare in Zimbabwe, to highlight the conditions contributing to lack of adequate transport, and thus, creating barriers to mobility. It draws data from a 6-month ethnographic study to show how lack of adequate transport and road infrastructure and the high costs of commuting have contributed to the social exclusion of residents, whose access to opportunities outside the community has been severely constrained. Based on these results, it argues that geographical location is a major factor contributing to transport disadvantages of communities on the periphery of Harare, and indeed, other cities in Zimbabwe, and thus, perpetuates their exclusion from the broader economy. It concludes by alluding to the policy implications of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the complexities around urban informality, in particular illegal street vending in post-colonial Harare in Zimbabwe from 2000 to 2021. It focuses on the positions of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front party and the Movement for Democratic Change opposition political party regarding illegal street vending. The study acknowledges the role played by the broader macro-economic environment in initiating and sustaining informal trading practices in the City of Harare but establishes the link between illegal street vending and politics and the concomitant effects on human security. Among others, it uses Ananya Roy's ideas about how the state “makes and unmakes” informality and primary and secondary sources of data to mainly argue that the political exploitation of the illegal street vending activities in Harare has detrimental effects on both urban governance and human security. The article concludes that illegal street vending is an integral part of urban societies in Africa and beyond serving different needs in the local economy. Consequently, the politicization and human (in) security of the illegal street vendors in Harare can partly be mitigated when formal employment is generated and political parties stop interfering in the running of the city for the furtherance of their selfish agendas.

Among other African cities, in terms of solid waste management (SWM), Harare has been ranked as one of the poorest. The municipality struggles to efficiently provide SWM services to its residents. Considering that SWM systems are complex, the individual behaviour of its components (waste generation, collection, and disposal) determines the overall performance of the system. This mini-review thus aims to understand the management system of the urban city's biggest source of solid waste which is household solid waste (HSW). The systematic literature review methodology using NVIVO was used to analyse the literature. Out of a selected sample size of 500 journal articles, 26 were selected based on their relevance to the study. The uncertainty of the data provided by the Harare City Council (HCC) and of HSW generation data harvested in the literature was calculated. According to the HCC data records, Harare has an average daily waste generation per capita of on average 0.38±0.1 kg producing about 207, 635, 294±56, 027, 040 kg of HSW generated annually. With the waste collection efficiency in Harare at about 72.4%±7.5%, the city collects approximately 170, 385, 600±33 384 209 kg of HSW annually. All the collected HSW is disposed of in the city's major MSW dumpsite called Pomona and only about 23, 498, 400±3, 988, 817 kg MSW is recovered annually with the average recovery efficiency at around 9.5%±2.8%, where most of the waste recovery is done by the waste pickers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the emergence of informal dog breeding businesses in Zimbabwe's high-density suburbs between 1990 and 2019. It uses the dog breeding practices of the working-classes and informal workers as an entry point into the global dog historiography that overly focuses on the dog breeding practices of the ruling classes and of the middle classes in Western Europe and in North America. It, thus, provides an animal-sensitive assessment of the Zimbabwean crisis drawing from archival sources, newspapers and from digital ethnography. It argues that the dog breeding practices of the working-classes and informal workers in Harare's high-density suburbs avails a global south dog history that is not overly influenced by Western Kennel Club rules and breeding standards. The paper also focuses on the various types of dogs that gained popularity at different times owing to Zimbabwe's changing political-economy during the period under review. Informal dog breeders bred different dog breeds at different times in reaction to the fashionable trends to solve evolving urban security needs as a result of changing urban sub-cultures. These informal dog breeding businesses created strong downstream and upstream business ventures that enabled successful dog breeders to attain breadwinner statuses during the Zimbabwean crisis. It concludes by showing that human-dog relations changed during the Zimbabwean crisis in Harare's high-density suburbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the 'post-colonial' dogs – and their humans – of an African city. It draws on archival sources, newspaper sources and oral interviews to describe how Zimbabwe dealt with its urban canine citizens over the almost 40 years following independence. The local narrative is contextualised in a comparative reading of dog histories from other urban centres around the world, but it demonstrates the idiographic idioms and shifting specificities of urban animal–human histories from the global south. We focus on changes in regimes regulating dogs, especially those owned by Africans, between 1980 and 2017, showing how dog management reflected competing visions of the modern city. We discuss visions of the dog–human relationship from the state downwards – including from national leaders, animal-welfare organisations and the Kennel Clubs right down to individual dog-owners and breeders. This group included a new niche, the young urban 'ghetto dog fancy', prompted by the vicissitudes of the economy and the vagaries of fashion. We discuss how this led to new types of 'Africanised' dogs, drawing on fluid notions of 'breed'. The state's efforts to impose top-down control were ambiguous and contested, but we show that the divide in response was never only racialised, but fissured through with anxieties over class, gender and generation. Harare developed a hybrid dog-keeping regime that mixed aspects of long-enduring tradition and self-consciously modern regimes. Fundamentally, we show that dog–human relations were idiographic, syncretic and shifting, and that they often pivoted around human–human relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines changes in Zimbabwean citizenship law since independence, highlighting the experience of urban residents of Malawian origin and descent, and state practices of political exclusion. Zimbabwe's citizenship laws became increasingly exclusive following independence, leaving many politically disenfranchised and labelled 'aliens' by the state. Notwithstanding the introduction of a new constitution in 2013, a great deal of confusion has remained over the eligibility of those with 'foreign' ancestry to have their citizenship rights recognised or reinstated. This article presents a bottom-up perspective on citizenship and belonging in Zimbabwe, showing through multidisciplinary research how long-term urban residents originally from Malawi have continued to be regarded as 'foreign'. Despite being labelled 'aliens' by the state, people of Malawian origin and descent have constructed a sense of belonging in Zimbabwe's urban communities, while at the same time, continuing to identify with their Malawian heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, there was concern that TB and HIV services in Zimbabwe would be severely affected. We set up real-time monthly surveillance of TB and HIV activities in 10 health facilities in Harare to capture trends in TB case detection, TB treatment outcomes and HIV testing and use these data to facilitate corrective action. Aggregate data were collected monthly during the COVID-19 period (March 2020–February 2021) using EpiCollect5 and compared with monthly data extracted for the pre-COVID-19 period (March 2019–February 2020). Monthly reports were sent to program directors. During the COVID-19 period, there was a decrease in persons with presumptive pulmonary TB (40.6%), in patients registered for TB treatment (33.7%) and in individuals tested for HIV (62.8%). The HIV testing decline improved in the second 6 months of the COVID-19 period. However, TB case finding deteriorated further, associated with expiry of diagnostic reagents. During the COVID-19 period, TB treatment success decreased from 80.9 to 69.3%, and referral of HIV-positive persons to antiretroviral therapy decreased from 95.7 to 91.7%. Declining trends in TB and HIV case detection and TB treatment outcomes were not fully redressed despite real-time monthly surveillance. More support is needed to transform this useful information into action.

To make co-production work as a strategy for urban development, and to establish a basis for collaborative action, states and organized communities must find a way to manage their unequal power relationship. Effective partnerships, constructed through projects of co-production, require participants to move beyond institutionally defined roles of service provider and service consumer to forge new terms for collaboration and spaces for joint decision-making. The processes of making space for co-production can be centrally important to establishing the legitimacy of development activity that includes the urban poor as stakeholders. Drawing from research undertaken in Harare, Zimbabwe, this paper examines how a memorandum of understanding was used to frame dialogue between community and state actors and facilitate co-production of housing and infrastructure in a low-income settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the case of illegal street vending in Harare to explore the interface between urban governance and politics. Drawing on the ideas of urban governance and informal governance, it illustrates how polarisation between the opposition political party Movement for Democratic Change-dominated municipal council and the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front-led government is affecting governance in general and in particular Harare municipality's ability to handle the illegal street vending problem. While the paper essentially identifies political expediency as the major reason why a lasting solution is elusive in handling the illegal street vending problem, it acknowledges that there are broad reasons for its persistence. Consequently, the article demonstrates some of the reasons why illegal street vending is difficult to end using the conventional methods and provides some alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zimbabwe has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality, yet little is understood about adolescent girls’ and young women’s perspectives on pregnancy or planning for pregnancy. The research study took an emic approach to understand and describe how adolescent girls and young women (14–24 years) in Harare, Zimbabwe, conceptualize pregnancy and planning for pregnancy and how these conceptualizations inform pregnancy decisions. Semi-structured, in-depth, qualitative interviews were conducted with adolescent girls and young women (N = 48) and data were analyzed thematically using NVivo 10. Pregnancy was conceptualized across nine themes: carrying a child and oneself, growing a family, motherhood, the best time for pregnancy, pregnancy decision makers, who is responsible for the pregnancy, pregnancy burden, pregnancy dangers, and increase in social status with pregnancy. Planning for pregnancy was conceptualized during the prepregnancy, pregnancy, and postpregnancy phases. Findings emphasize considering sociocultural views concerning pregnancy and including social networks in maternal health efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fifteen years after Zimbabwe's political independence and Black majority rule, Rakodi (1995) concluded that Harare, the capital city, remained quintessentially a settler-colonial city. Then, Harare had not yet experienced the full impacts of 'neo-liberalism' as in Nairobi or the suburbanisation of office and commercial development as in Johannesburg. In view of significant political economy transformations since the 1990s, this paper aims to provide a systematic interpretation of ongoing transitions that characterise the city. Informed by a systemic spatio-temporal and historical analysis it illustrates how ongoing post-1990s foundational restructuring of the economy centred on jambanja has transformed Harare from a settler-colonial city to a highly informalised 'zhing-zhong' African city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]