Climate change induced droughts fuel exodus of young people in Matabeleland South

📅 Published: August 21, 2025

Curated by AllZimNews.com

The district is primarily rural, with agriculture being the mainstay of the local economy and the area has a history of recurrent droughts that have significantly affected agriculture and livelihoods, particularly during the 1990s and early 2000s, with notable drought years including 1992, 1994, 2002, 2008,   2016, 2019 and 2024.

These droughts coincide with the district’s semi-arid climate, characterised by average annual rainfall ranging from 400 to 600 mm, rendering any form of subsistence farming unviable.

Empandeni village is about 52 kilometres from Plumtree, a transit town with very little economic activity to offer employment opportunities for young people from the surrounding villages like Ndebele, which makes neighbouring South Africa and Botswana the only viable options for the army of job seekers.

An investigation by CITE  with support from the Information for Development Trust (IDT), a non-profit organisation supporting investigative journalism in Zimbabwe and southern Africa, revealed a growing trend of environmental refugees originating from Matabeleland South, which is largely ignored in the country’s migration crisis discourse.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) records for 2024 showed that 52 percent of the people who left Zimbabwe were coming from Matabeleland South. https://reliefweb. int/report/zimbabwe/flow-monitoring-report-iom-zimbabwe-september-2024
According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), an environmental refugee is a person who has been forced to flee their home and community due to changes in the environment, such as frequent droughts. 1,2 billion to be displaced
A global think tank, the Institute for Economics and Peace, predicts that 1. 2 billion people could be displaced around the world by 2050 due to climate change and natural disasters. 🔗

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