Sustainable Village Zambia (SUVIZA)

WHAT WE DO

Build Resilience and Promote Local Climate Action

As alluded to in the about section above and as reflected in the vision and mission statement, our utmost motivation is to see resilient communities whose capacities have been built to adequately prepare for and respond to the most common hazards that undermine their livelihoods. All this has to be evidence-based and locally driven. We do not believe in relying on speculation to inform our programming nor do we seek to promote interventions that do not speak to local aspirations.

Supporting Climate Smart and Ecosystem-Based Livelihood Systems

We are further convinced that climate change impacts do not just adversely affect livelihoods but also push exposed communities into adopting negative coping mechanisms that also serve as drivers of climate change, particularly the indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources leading to damage to sensitive ecosystems.

This observation calls for deliberate efforts towards restoration of damaged ecosystems and prudent maintenance of those not yet severely damaged as an integral component of diversifying and climate-proofing rural livelihoods.

OVER 60%

Zambia's population relies on ecosystems for livelihood

Empowerment, Social Protection, and Participatory Democratic Governance

We are alive to the segregation of climate impacts by sex and age, putting mainly women, children and persons with disabilities in harm's way. Women bear the brunt of climate impacts more than men. Children get robbed of their childhood by situations created by climate impacts whereas persons with disabilities have their vulnerabilities worsened.

Young people have their future disrupted or permanently altered on account of socio-economic implications and cultural dimensions brought about by climate change impacts. Several protection issues arise in the midst of such heightened hazard-induced contexts, rights of exposed and affected individuals and groups get subordinated to other considerations or largely abrogated.

Owing to the foregoing, we have packaged our programming through the identified 'Focus Areas' that collectively build our case for embracing the outlined vision and mission statement which we believe when adequately addressed can mitigate the multilayer impacts affecting the identified groups mentioned herein.

By 2023, rural poverty in Zambia is still high at

78.8

83%

rural female-headed households live in poverty

77%

of male-headed rural households live in poverty

Urban Climate Action

Considering a proportion of closer to 46% urban population in 1,716,995 urban households in Zambia and much of that being increasingly concentrated in hazard prone areas, with the capital Lusaka and its hinterland claiming about 16% of national population with at least 687,923 households of which about 70% live in poorly serviced peri-urban settlements, there is an observable steady rise in hazard exposed populations sustained by triple effect of urban to urban migration, rural to urban migration, and net natural increase.

As urban planning areas become increasingly underbounded leading to land scarcity and skyrocketing land pricing systems, many, especially the urban poor find themselves shunted in dangerous locations not suitable for habitation thereby shouldering the brunt of urban climate impacts. This leaves more assets exposed to hazards, rising economic losses, disrupting urban livelihoods, amidst an upsurge in seasonal epidemics and increasing vulnerability.

With an informed overview of the rural-urban nexus SUVIZA sees urban climate crises as a compounding challenge that is already undermining rural livelihoods as well since urban areas are the productive hearts of the economy and do not only provide ready market for rural produce but also supply services, goods, tools and technologies relevant to rural development.

It is therefore imperative that appropriate measures on the height of urban climate crises and their impacts on urban communities becomes SUVIZA's urban programming focal area. This calls for enhanced networking and promoting national and regional level urban management coordination mechanisms buoyed by effective early warning systems and general ecological awareness of the urban environment.

Lusaka sources at least

40% of its water from Kafue, and meets only 52% of its water demand while only 14% are covered under the municipal sewer network, necessitating a surge in seasonal epidemics.