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Lovemore Chikova Development Matrix
Environmental issues are often pushed to the periphery, yet their contribution to development or lack thereof in many countries is immense. This is despite the fact that environmental challenges facing many developing countries mainly emanate from human activities, making the environment one of the central issues when it comes to the developmental agenda.

Development enthusiasts are increasingly linking sustainable development to environment management, and they are right.

A poorly managed environment often results in problems that often inhibit developmental programmes through many of its effects.

These effects are seen in land degradation, natural resources mismanagement and the pollution of water bodies, air and the general environment.

Malpractices in the environment lead to falling of water tables, biodiversity loss, deforestation, desertification and waste mismanagement.

In fact, the state of soils, air, water and forests has of late assumed a huge bearing on the developmental agendas of many developing countries.

Developing countries rely mainly on farming as a source of livelihood, and any negative effects on soil, water and air can have a devastating effect on harvests.

Zimbabwe’s major environmental activity at the moment is the National Environment Cleaning Day launched by President Mnangagwa in December 2018.

The day is religiously observed every first Friday of each month, but is now being viewed in the broad sense of inculcating good environmental practices.

Institutions and individuals have since embraced this practice, and are now cleaning their surroundings, not only on every first Friday of the month.

The campaign enhances the goals of the new dispensation, which hinge on developing the economy.
There is an important link between the environment and sustainable development, as a decrease in the environmental quality due to both natural and human activities can alter the direction a country wants to take in its developmental goals.

The clean-up should be viewed in such a broad environmental agenda, that it ceases to be only about picking up litter and throwing it into the next available bin.

It is an exercise that raises consciousness about environmental issues and the need to preserve the natural environment for it to be able to support the developmental agenda the country is focusing on.
This clean-up also symbolises the need for a renewed and clean mindset among Zimbabweans to enable them to focus on the agenda to move the country forward.

For the implementation of the developmental agenda that leads to the attainment of Vision 2030 that will ensure the country becomes an upper middle income economy, there is need for Zimbabwe to attain smart ways of conducting business.

For March, the first Friday falls on the 6th, which means the next clean-up is due Friday next week.
As this day approaches, it is important to reflect on the broader environmental issues that affect Zimbabwe and many other developing countries.

Our environmental laws need to be strengthened or at least vigorously enforced to protect the environment.

Environmental legislation and policies are meant to ensure sustainable utilisation of resources in all the demands of life; be it energy, water, construction material and agricultural production.
Zimbabwe is lucky to have laws that seek to protect the environment.

These include the Natural Resources Act, Hazardous Substances and Articles Act, Atmospheric Pollution Prevention Act, Water Act, the Forestry Act and the Environment Management Act.

The country has also established various environment-related agencies that include the National Environmental Council, the Environmental Management Agency (EMA), Environment Management Board, Environment Fund, Environmental Quality Standards and Standards and Enforcement Committee.

All these agencies seek to ensure that the environment is able to support the population and all developmental activities.

In addition, Zimbabwe is a signatory to several treaties and conventions on the environment such as the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, the Preferential Trade Area Treaty (PTA), the Lome Convention, the World Heritage Convention, the International Conventions on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the Agreement on the Action Plan for the Environmentally-Sound Management of the Zambezi River System and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).

Waste management is another area where the legislation and policies play a major role, and this is equally relevant to the clean-up.

The way cities like Harare handle waste has been a major concern, with heaps of garbage going for months without being collected.

It is time bodies like EMA up their game in terms of monitoring the environment and punishing offenders.

It should be the duty of EMA to ensure that provisions that govern waste management are imposed on cities such as Harare.

The Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan (2014) is clear that solid waste management is one of the most pressing emerging environmental issues confronting urban local authorities in Zimbabwe.

This is attributed to rapid urbanisation that has led to high population densities, coupled with the sprouting of illegal settlements in cities and towns.

People in urban areas are also changing their consumption patterns that have resulted in the generation of more solid waste.

The bigger picture is that without linking sustainable development to environmental management, necessary conditions for development will be difficult to create.

This explains why many developing countries, including Zimbabwe, have policies that deal with environmental challenges, although their application is not tough enough to deter environmental crimes.

Environment and development have been such big issues for many decades, with efforts to address the situation coming under the spotlight in 1972 at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm.

It was at this conference that the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was created with the aim of coordinating environmental activities and help developing countries enact environmentally sound policies and practices.

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), an independent policy research institute on environmental issues, was also formed at the same gathering.

The Stockholm conference and the formation of the two organisations saw awareness in environmental issues growing throughout the world.

More international organisations dealing with the environment were formed afterwards, and now there are countless entities dealing with the environment in many countries, including in developing nations.
Various conferences have been held and papers produced, linking development to the environment.

A book produced by the Brundtland Commission in 1987 looked at environmental sustainability and the social and economic development in developing countries, concluding that poverty is actually linked to environmental degradation.

Marginalised communities bear the brunt of environmental challenges and this calls for the empowerment of such societies so that they are able to withstand the effects.

What is important to bear in mind is that environmental challenges do not cause poverty, they instead worsen the situation because they are more pronounced in communities that are already poor.

It is imperative that such communities identify the environmental challenges they face so that they are able to come up with appropriate frameworks to deal with the problem.

With rapid urbanisation and industrialisation taking place throughout the world, including in developing countries, it becomes imperative that the hunger for the exploitation of natural resources increases.

This leaves many people exposed to the vagaries of environmental deterioration, creating a huge chasm between those living in newly industrialised cities and those on the periphery.

What is obvious is that environmental challenges are a reality, especially in developing countries, and have had an overbearing effect on sustainable economic development.

Let’s take soil erosion for example.
Soil erosion has been one of the most devastating phenomena on the environment in development countries, as it has the potential to drastically reduce yields of staple crops.

Environmental challenges in both developed and developing countries are increasingly becoming complicated because they are caused by both the rich and the poor.

Those who live in affluent societies tend to consume ready-made foods whose packaging is a danger to the environment.
In addition, ownership of handy appliances like refrigerators, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, microwave

ovens, etc, some of which emit chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which affect the ozone layer.
The rich are known to have a penchant for over-exploiting the earth’s natural resources, with devastating effects on the environment, while the poor survive at the expense of the environment which they depend on for their very survival.

The poor have to live off the environment through deforestation for wood fuel and farm land, unsustainable farming methods that lead to soil erosion and many other survival activities.

Many African countries are now at a disadvantage, especially after colonialism disrupted indigenous knowledge systems, such as conservation tillage, fallowing and rotational grazing, among other practices.

In Zambia, for example, for many years before the arrival of colonialists, people used to practice shifting cultivation, traditionally known as chitemene, in a bid to preserve their soil fertility and prevent soil erosion.

The Maasai tribe of Kenya used to maintain a balance in the ecology when grazing their cattle, but the advent of colonialism put paid to this noble environmental preservation method.

The colonialists pushed the Maasai out of their land, resulting in shortage of grazing land, which led to overgrazing in their new settlements.

There are hazards associated with environmental challenges, which include diseases, disability and death, which have worsened the capacity of developing countries to cope as they direct more resources in the fight against the risks.

The environmental hazards are more pronounced in sub-Saharan Africa where they are common at workplaces, in the home, on the streets and in the community at large.

These hazards are mainly caused by environmental challenges such as toxic substances on the ground and in the air, poor sanitation and poor water quality.