In 2019, when Cyclone Idai struck Zimbabwe, the devastation was massive. In Chipinge District alone, more than 2,000 houses were damaged and more than 600 latrines collapsed.

Kudzaiishe Seti was living in the district during the hurricane, and saw how the recovery effort was hampered by far-off government bodies making decisions about how to proceed. At the time, he was a program officer with The Green Institute, a youth-led organization that partners with local governments via participatory policymaking to design – and implement – strategies to mitigate climate damage and build resilience in the region.

Green Institute spent several years surveying rural communities through channels like radio and WhatsApp to identify needs and possible solutions. Last year, it released a policy agenda the organization co-created with a wide range of community stakeholders, including religious leaders, government officials and refugees. (Refugees make up 15% of Chipinge town.) The agenda includes solutions like investing in terracing and ecotourism. The organization sees this agenda as filling a gap left by the government.

Proximate spoke with Seti about the challenges of engaging the national government on the local level, how locally led participatory policymaking can focus attention on rural needs, and why he thinks there should be a COP (climate conference) for developing countries.

There is an endemic challenge we face here in Zimbabwe, in which our government comes up with climate change strategies that are not exactly what communities want.

The government has done a lot on the national level around climate change. But those plans don’t speak to all the landscapes of Zimbabwe, which are diverse. Sometimes central governments can make decisions on climate policies based on what educated people in the cities want, not on what rural communities need.

The ecosystem, the biomes and the climate of Zimbabwe are not as uniform as one might think. Strategies on green energy, the green economy, green transportation, smart agriculture – these are things that largely apply to urban areas and commercial farms. 

For instance, we have a recent law that applies to imported cars from Japan. It has an incentive for people to buy hybrid vehicles, and a prohibition on importing cars that are more than 10 years old. But in rural areas, people do not have electric cars. They often do not even have access to electricity. You're talking about people who may have to walk 20 kilometers to get to a health clinic.

So, talking about green energy is foreign to them. They need solutions they can relate to – solutions like terracing land to protect against natural disasters, consolidating land for sustainable agriculture, and investing in alternative water supplies and irrigation. Those are the solutions we need to get rural residents involved in. They are the end “receivers” of climate change, yet are not engaged in preventing it.

What do you think is behind the development of climate policies that are not appropriate for universal application?

Geopolitics plays a big role in these climate change policies, negotiations and developments.

In the Global North, like Europe, there is a large urban population. So, policies that are advanced by the Global North are oriented toward an urban population: green transportation, green energy. Since these countries are leading the global negotiations, and they are the major financiers of these initiatives, they have contextualized the initiatives to their economies.

There’s a need for tailor-made policies, not for a one-size-fits-all strategy. For example, an emphasis on electric cars is an insult to people don’t have cars and aren’t even on th national grid. Instead, rural dwellers need help with more resilient agriculture practices, diversifying their local economies and preparing for natural disasters.

So, we are trying to develop a global voice to advocate for locally led policies. We need participatory engagement models that ensure that the voice of rural communities, ethnic minorities and other marginalized groups are heard.

I even think there should be a COP for developing countries, a COP for developed countries, and a COP for emerging countries. A generalized COP is not getting the job done. There are countries at different levels of development; it’s something we cannot ignore or neglect...

The Green Institute spent several years surveying communities. What is the role of the government in adopting and implementing the processes you recommend?

Due to the Green Institute’s close collaboration with various agencies within the government, administration officials are invested in the process. Provincial and district leaders were involved from the very beginning. Last year, when we held an event [to share the policies we had developed], it was attended by many councilors, chiefs, members of parliament and leaders from government ministries, like the Environmental Management Agency and the Forestry Commission.

We hoped to get the [national] government more involved in implementation as well. But we were impeded by [the challenges with the election]. So the politicians we hoped to engage in turning these ideas into public policy did not come forward as we had hoped. 

But on the community level, we’re moving forward. Local parliaments can make local laws. But there has not been any climate change law on a local level in this country. [Parliamentarians] are either reluctant, or are totally unaware of solutions. With our work, we are trying to stir the waters to gain attention and show policymakers that localized climate solutions are needed and available.

We see our work as a sort of “awakening.” With our position papers, draft policies, and the examples we are setting, we want to show those in government that there are gaps in national climate policies, and that people know what will work for them.

I think it’s working. While there hasn’t been an official statement on our work, I have been consulted by a number of different policymakers, inquiring about how this work could be done in their respective districts.

What we want the government to do now is to see the success of this project and advocate for authorities in local provinces to draft their own climate change policies.

Today, Seti has moved on to become a programs lead with Green Community Solutions Africa (GCSA), a youth-led organization specializing in participatory climate action in South Africa, Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique.