By Kudakwashe Pembere
While Zimbabwe is still reeling under the harsh impact of the El-Nino induced drought, researchers intend to study the nexus between climate change effects and children malnutrition in the country.
Researchers from Zvitambo, a children and maternal health research institute will be doing this study in partnership with the Food and Nutrition Council (FNC), the Ministry of Health and Child Care alongside CIMMYT Zimbabwe and Cornell University from New York, USA.
The research will be conducted in Murehwa and Shurugwi over a period of two years.
Addressing a Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Symposium recently, Dr Prosper Chopera from Zvitambo said while climate change is topical to have been dubbed the single biggest threat to humanity, it was important to understand its impact on malnutrition in children.
“So, the effects of climate change are very apparent. Climate change is so topical right now, everyone is talking about climate change. They actually say it’s the single biggest threat to humanity right now. And I think we’ve seen also these effects.
“I think recently we saw snow in South Africa, we saw the king of the jungle drowning in snow, which is quite rare. We’ve seen these prolonged droughts and floods in various places all over the world and extreme heat. So, climate change is there, it’s quite visible, it’s apparent, and Zimbabwe is not an exception,” she said.
She added that there is still some ignorance surrounding the issue of climate change despite this phenomenon affecting livelihoods.
“I know there are many debates. There are some people who don’t believe that there’s climate change, actually. Some groups of people that don’t believe it’s occurring. But this is what science tells us.
“You know, the temperature, the minimum temperatures have risen by about two to six degrees in the past years. Rainfall has declined by about 5%. And we find that, like in the country, about 45% of the households have experienced prolonged mid-season dry spell.
“And in sub-Saharan Africa, 80% of our agriculture is rain fed and when you have this prolonged drought, this altered rainfall pattern, this affects food production, it affects the whole food system. So, production is affected. Livelihoods are affected. Incomes are also affected,” she said.
She said they will be using historical data on food and security indicators while exploring the community understanding of climate change.
“So why are we doing this study? Why is ZVITAMBO, FNC, Cornell University, why are they studying the effects of climate change on malnutrition? So, we’ve got many nutrition problems in Zimbabwe. And stunting is one of them.
“But we have multiple versions of nutrition problems. Stunting last year, was reported to be around 26 percent. We really would like to know how much climate change is contributing to this. You know, it’s a problem with multiple geologies, but perhaps climate change is pertinent or maybe not so much. But, so the specific effects of climate change in malnutrition are poorly understood,” Dr Chopera said.
Zimbabwe according to UNICEF is ranked high in the 2021 UNICEF Children’s Climate Risk Index.
“Zimbabwe is also impacted by climate change, which causes frequent occurrences and increasing severity of floods, tropical cyclones, droughts, and heat waves.
“While children are the least responsible for climate change, suffer the biggest brunt. Still, children need to be included in the climate dialogue,” said UNICEF.
