Gracsious Maviza

Climate-related displacements in Southern Africa have escalated because of an increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events, particularly cyclones, floods and droughts. Mozambique and Zimbabwe are among the most affected countries, where repeated climate shocks have displaced communities and disrupted critical livelihood systems. However, evidence on how these displacement processes specifically influence food and water security remains insufficiently synthesised. This study examines this gap through a systematic review guided by the question: How do climate-related displacement events affect food and water security among populations in Mozambique and Zimbabwe? Following the PRISMA framework, 32 peer-reviewed studies published between 2010 and 2024 were identified using PICO-derived search terms. Studies were included if they explicitly examined displacement and its implications for food and water security. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) was used to assess methodological quality, and a Most Similar Systems Design (MSSD) approach enabled comparison of governance responses shaping outcomes for displaced populations. Findings indicate that climate-related displacement intensifies socio-economic vulnerabilities, reduces access to land and safe water, and heightens resource competition in receiving areas. These pressures undermine household food availability, dietary diversity and water reliability, while increasing exposure to protection risks. Weak institutional capacity and inconsistent policy frameworks further constrain sustainable recovery. This review advances knowledge by synthesising dispersed evidence and identifying critical gaps in governance, planning and service provision. Contribution: It emphasises the need for integrated, human-security-oriented interventions that strengthen resilience, safeguard essential resources and ensure displaced populations are effectively included in national adaptation and disaster-risk-reduction strategies.

How the security risks associated with climate change, such as social instability and conflicts over dwindling resources, impact the study of religion in Africa has received limited attention from scholars of African religions, despite the need to determine how these impacts influence how religion is conceptualized. However, climate-related security risks intersect with religious beliefs and practices. This article draws on participatory methodologies and an ethnographic study of the security risks stemming from climate change in northern Mozambique. It demonstrates that the emergence of security challenges related to climate change provides religious studies with new data and, therefore, new challenges in rethinking the meaning of African religions. It also shows the significance of attributing religion to climate disasters among religious communities, exposes the epistemological assumptions and conflicts over the role of religion in social challenges, and demonstrates the transcendence of religious differences in times of widespread social crises. The article thus contributes to setting the stage for future studies that aim to understand how climate-driven vulnerabilities change the conception of and engagement with religion in Africa.

This article examines how religio-cultural values influence the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of local communities in the face of climate-change-induced security risks through a case study of vulnerable communities in northern Mozambique. These risks encompass various forms of suffering, displacement, and violence related to climatic stressors. While traditional approaches to climate change impacts often prioritize economic and technological solutions, this study argues for the inclusion of religio-cultural values in climate security discourse. Using a values-based analytical framework and ethnographic and participatory research methods, the article investigates how religio-cultural values shape community responses to climate change and related security risks in two communities in Nampula District. The research highlights that techno-scientific interventions, when not aligned with local values, can exacerbate conflicts and undermine the effectiveness of climate adaptation strategies. It further demonstrates the potential for peace and stability that can be achieved by integrating local religio-cultural values into climate policies and practices.

In Nampula province, Mozambique, internally displaced and refugee communities live in settlements situated at the outskirts of Nampula city. This paper explores the intersection of gender and food systems in displacement contexts by focusing on the experiences of displaced populations and examining how displacement exacerbates existing gender inequalities and shapes access to food resources and livelihoods. It delves deeper into the barriers and opportunities men and women face in orienting themselves within food systems in displacement contexts. A participatory rural appraisal methodology, disaggregated by gender, was implemented in displaced communities in Nampula. The gendered analysis found that displacement dynamics affected food systems, where gender dynamics play a central role in determining resilience capacities. The findings of this study contribute to the scholarship on the nexus between climate security, food security and gender, bringing internally displaced and refugee communities into the fore of food system discussions.

When Zimbabwean migrants age, they often retire and permanently return to their families in their home country. Before that, they periodically visit home on holidays and for family functions such as weddings, funerals or burials. Otherwise, they spend much of their lives abroad. Following their ‘retirement return’, several dynamics emerge about their reintegration, power dynamics and care needs within their families. To better understand such issues, this paper explores the lived realities of old‐age return migrants in Zimbabwe to answer the question: What informs the return and reintegration of old‐age migrants in Zimbabwe? We unpack this and other questions using data from in‐depth interviews with 10 old‐age return migrants, as well as several snapshots from semi‐formal and informal conversations with returnees' family members in one of Zimbabwe's mainstay migrant communities in Matabeleland. To fully describe the context in which informants live and perceive their experiences, research findings are complemented by long‐term participant observation from the researchers' erstwhile studies and ethnographic knowledge of the study area.

This article explores the impact of climate-related security risks on community values and how that impact influences responses to the risks. Research and practice have paid little attention to how non-material and subjective conditions, especially values, mediate the climate-security nexus. We focused on the impact of land conflicts and food insecurity (as examples of climate-related security risks) on community values through a study of two rural communities in Zambia’s southern province using impact rating, focus-group discussions (FGD s), and interviews. Innovatively, we began by identifying community values and asking about the impact of climate security risks on community values instead of what ‘experts’ perceive or consider to be risks. We found that, firstly, participants from both communities perceived both land conflicts and food insecurity as having a strong to very strong influence on their values. Secondly, women perceive the impact of land conflicts and food insecurity on values to be greater than men do. Thirdly, the perception of the impact of climate-related security risks on values is prevalent among communities in Zambia’s southern province. The article concludes that values are crucial and central determinants in how communities interpret and respond to climate-related security risks, as well as how they engage with food, land, and water systems. It recommends that policymakers and practitioners integrate community values for effective and sustainable climate-related security risk policies and interventions.

Zimbabwe has consistently experienced an influx of refugees despite its shrinking economy. This places a heavy burden on the state to provide social protection to refugees. There are limited studies that focus on the dynamics of refugee protection in resource-constrained countries like Zimbabwe, often characterized as being only immigrant-sending countries. We use data from 12 in-depth interviews with key informants to explore how the prolonged socio-economic crisis has impacted the state’s ability to provide social protection to refugees in Zimbabwe. The study also explores the relationship between the state and other stakeholders in hosting refugees in Zimbabwe. The findings suggest that socio-economic challenges in a shrinking economy affect the protection outcomes of refugees regardless of the presence of a robust refugee regime in the country.

In response to the persistent existential threats and human development challenges caused by the climate crisis, all countries in Southern Africa have become party to numerous international climate governance agreements, protocols and action plans. Currently, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (1992), United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (2015) and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change (2016) which is “a legally binding international treaty on climate change” (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 2016:1) are the principal international agreements that Southern African countries are party to. Notwithstanding their limitations, the primary principle of these international conventions is the creation and maintenance of a global platform that coordinates mitigation, adaptation and resilience building guided by common but differentiated responsibility norms. These principles also underpin other international climate governance protocols such as the Montreal Protocol (1987), highly contentious Kyoto Protocol (1997) and ancillary climate governance treaties that include the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (1987), Convention on Biological Diversity (1994) and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015), among others. Even though these international agreements are not perfect due to their discredited neoliberal orientation and conception of the causes, impacts and solutions to the climate crisis, their worth is in the mapping and articulation of a global climate action vision. In an attempt to actualize this global vision, Southern African countries have in their own unique ways designed, adopted, adapted and implemented numerous climate action policies, strategies and action plans with varying degrees of success and more frequent outright failure. In this chapter, we unpack and analyse selected climate laws, policies, strategies and action plans of Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe with a view to understanding the extent to which they are pathways towards social and climate justice. By any measure, this overview is not an exhaustive analysis of all climate policies, strategies and action plans of the case study countries. Rather, a selection of the most relevant for our analysis was chosen to paint a broad picture of the state of climate injustice as the climate crisis continues to unfold.

Climate change is among the most topical concerns that the world is presently grappling with. Efforts to address this challenge have been largely informed by the principles of a just transition and the need for social equity that ensures people are at the core of the initiatives and no one is left behind (Allwood, 2020). The need for social justice and equity stems from the realisation that the risks and effects associated with climate change continue to disproportionately affect those least responsible and least able to adapt (Chang et al., 2014). Considering this, responses to the effects of climate change must ensure social justice and equity. There are two primary forms of social justice – distributive and procedural. Distributive social justice refers to how resources, benefits, and burdens are allocated across different population contingents. Procedural social justice is concerned with “the fairness and transparency of the processes used to make decisions about societal goals, i.e., ‘who decides’ and ‘who participates’ in decision-making processes” (Preston et al., 2014, p. 14). Within this framework, climate justice should thus involve the full and equitable participation of all in making decisions about climate change response strategies despite their social class, gender, race, and geographical location. In this chapter, we submit that embedding a gender lens has been one of the most valuable initiatives in the drive towards climate justice, emphasising social equity in climate change response strategies. Consistent with the social equity framework, we focus on how the persistent challenge of climate change continues to influence gendered migration patterns in Southern Africa and whether efforts to address this have upheld the principles of social justice. Although this is a critical area of focus, in Africa, there are still very limited studies focusing on this nexus. Ongoing debates still question whether there is a link between climate change and migration, let alone gender. Undeniably, climate change is not gender neutral (Masinga et al., 2021). It has differential effects on women and men due to the differences in responsibilities, access to resources and assets, and decision-making power, which significantly compounds inequalities and vulnerabilities (Chingarande et al., 2020). Although this is acknowledged, there is still very limited data to show linkages and make concrete conclusions on the nexus between climate change, migration, and gender. Notwithstanding, the subject remains critical in attempts to establish the linkages therein and expose the inherent gaps in the study of climate change, climate justice, migration, and gender, hence this chapter.