Influence of the heifer international pass on programme on livehoods of households: the case of Wanezi Ward in Mberengwa District of Zimbabwe

Abstract

Food and nutritional insecurity, poverty and hunger are some of the 21st -century challenges baffling most developing economies. Worldwide, 1.2 billion people are estimated to be living in poverty. Since 1990, the number of people living in extreme poverty has increased by over 50 million in 2014. Among the many public and private institutions that have made several gritty efforts to address the poverty challenge is the Heifer international through its Heifer International Pass on Programme (HIPP). Under the HIPP, the Pass on the Gift programme has been implemented in Ward 1 of Mberengwa District for over two decades targeting the food and nutritional insecure, hungry and poverty-stricken people who are given a gift in form of cattle, goats, chicken etc. This was done with the belief that the gift will add value to their asset base and serve as stepping stone out of poverty, food and nutrition insecurity. Various reports have been written on how the programme helped in improving household livelihood. However, the voice of the beneficiaries was not being heard. This study explored how the Pass-on-the-Gift programme influenced the household‘s livelihoods in Ward 1, Mberengwa District of Zimbabwe. A multi-stage integrated approach was employed. Both the case study and a cross-sectional survey designs were employed. Two sequentially integrated phases were followed. On the first phase, a case study was used to gather data from the Heifer International Pass on Programme beneficiaries and other key stakeholders. During this stage, data were collected using a semistructured interview guide. Results obtained from the first phase informed formulation of the questionnaire used in the second phase. Respondents were purposefully sampled in both stages. Data obtained through semi-structured interviews were analyzed using Atlas ti 8 software while that from a survey was analyzed using IBM SPPS version 25 software to generate descriptive statistics and inferential statistics components. Results from the first phase of data collection were triangulated with those from the second phase. This synchronized the two data sets and allowed subsequent discussion of the results. The research findings revealed that the HIPP influenced all the households of the participating farmers financially, socially and economically where p= 0.000. Thus, the study confirmed that the notion that cattle ownership can be used as an avenue of confronting the multi-dimensional rural development challenges. Furthermore, it was revealed that cattle ownership empowers the rural smallholder farmers and has potential to assist households dismantle the perpetual dependency on external support, improve their livelihoods and contribute to sustainable development goals.