Climate Change and Children's Rights in Zimbabwe: Toward Social Policy-Based Interventions

This volume, Climate Change and Children's Rights in Zimbabwe: Toward Social Policy-Based Interventions, provides a comprehensive examination of the intersection between climate change and children's rights in Zimbabwe, one of the world's most climate-vulnerable nations. It brings together diverse perspectives from sociology, law, development studies, anthropology, economics, and environmental sciences to challenge conventional approaches that treat children as passive victims of climate impacts. The book interrogates climate vulnerability through multiple dimensions, from legal frameworks and theoretical foundations to sectoral impacts and innovative adaptation strategies, showcasing transformative pathways for child-centred climate action that recognises children as rights-holders and active agents of change.\

The book outlines critical aspects and issues that must be understood and addressed to protect and advance children's rights in the face of accelerating environmental change. Attention is given to both persistent structural inequalities and innovative opportunities for building resilience through rights-based, gender-transformative, and community-grounded approaches. Through case studies spanning diverse districts, including Lupane, Bikita, Mbire, Chivi, Mashonaland Central, Gutu, Goromonzi, Zvimba, and others, it highlights how climate impacts manifest differently across Zimbabwe's varied ecological and socio-economic landscapes, affecting children's health, education, nutrition, protection, and overall well-being. It provides foundational perspectives into climate justice imperatives, multispecies justice frameworks, legal and policy gaps, and opportunities for transformative social policy that centres children's agency and Indigenous knowledge systems. The book is of interest to researchers, climate justice scholars, child rights advocates, development practitioners, humanitarian organisations, and policymakers committed to implementing more effective, equitable, and contextually appropriate climate responses that place children's rights at the centre of all climate action across Zimbabwe and the broader African continent.

Emmanuel Ndhlovu is a Research Fellow at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He holds a PhD in Development Studies. His research interests encompass a broad range of topics, including agrarian political economy, food systems, food security, land reform, agriculture and agribusiness, as well as social policy. Emmanuel has widely published in these areas and has also successfully edited over 10 books. His latest authored books include "Agriculture, Autonomous Development, and Prospects for Industrialisation in Africa" and "Social Policy in Southern Africa: Prospects and Possibilities." Before his current role at the University of Johannesburg, Emmanuel was a Research Fellow at the Vaal University of Technology, South Africa.

Clement Chipenda (PhD) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of South Africa's College of Graduate Studies, where he contributes his expertise to the SARChI Chair in Social Policy. He is a co-investigator in research project ‘The Social Policy Dimensions of Land and Agrarian Reform in International Perspective,’ as well as the Social Policy in the Post Covid-19 Pandemic Era: Investigating a Transformative and Gender-Sensitive Framework in South Africa, His research interests span a diverse yet interconnected range of topics, including agrarian political economy, agro-food systems, transformative social policy, children’s rights and child protection, social security, urban and rural sociology, as well as youth and gender studies.