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The communities living in Binga and Buhera are grappling with erratic rainfall and suboptimal water management practices which are causing crop and animal production systems to fail. This is exacerbating water and food insecurity, with a disproportionate impact on women and girls.

As climate change takes hold in Binga and Buhera, ‘the communities’ water sources are drying up about four months ahead of the next rainy season’, explained Martiale Zebaze Kana, Head of Natural Sciences in UNESCO’s Regional Office for Southern Africa in Harare, at the event. 

He presented the project, which will be Strengthening Local Communities’ Adaptive Capacity and Resilience to Climate Change through Sustainable Groundwater Utilisation over the next four years.

As the main implementing partner, UNESCO is working closely with the executing entity, the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development.

Solarisation is a process by which solar technology is installed in water wells to reduce the cost of extracting water. 

Even though Africa possesses large groundwater resources, crops are produced almost entirely under rainfed conditions, according to Groundwater: making the Invisible Visible, the United Nations World Water Development Report published by UNESCO in 2022 on behalf of UN-Water. The report states that ‘given the importance of the agricultural sector in Africa, any improvement in the sector has the potential of transforming the living conditions of the population’.

Current use of groundwater for irrigation is limited in sub-Saharan Africa, observes the report. This is partly due to the cost implications associated with groundwater exploration and construction, along with difficulties in financing. The report finds that the general lack of groundwater professionals is affecting the staffing of institutions as well as that of local and national government offices in many countries, hampering emerging initiatives to oversee effective groundwater monitoring, planning, and development. 

Officially launched in 2007, the Adaptation Fund was established by the seventh session of the Conference of the Parties (COP7) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Adaptation Fund helps vulnerable communities in developing countries adapt to climate change by supporting projects and programmes that are based on country needs and priorities. 

The new project's emphasis on sustainable groundwater utilization aligns with others being implemented by UNESCO's Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme which are building communities’ resilience to climate change. 

For instance, UNESCO introduced a Flood and Drought Early Warning System in the Chimanimani and Chipinge Districts of Zimbabwe between 2019 and 2022 as part of a wider project funded by the World Bank and managed by the United Nations Office for Project Services. ‘We shall see a reduction in precipitation in this area of 30% in the coming decades as a consequence of climate change’, remarked UNESCO Programme Specialist Koen Verbist at the time.

UNESCO assessed the current and future risks posed by climate change to the Chimanimani and Chipinge Districts then designed more robust pathways for adaptation that were in tune with local needs, such as drainage ditches to channel excess water. UNESCO then worked with local communities to develop two new radio stations for the early warning system which now disseminate alerts and practical information to the population, such as on the advantages of using groundwater to irrigate fields in the prolonged absence of rainfall.