Non-governmental organisation emergency food relief in rural zimbabwe: Implications on labour supply and self sustenance

Abstract

The study sought to determine whether NGO food relief administered in rural Zimbabwe has had impacts of the citizens’ perceptions towards work and self sustenance. Secondarily, the study sought to measure whether the degree of impact of the NGO food (if it exists). Despite the recent attention granted to studies concentrating on the impacts of foreign aid in Sub- Saharan Africa, very little literature exists on the impacts of food aid in particular even more so the Zimbabwean perspective. The possible labour market and development impacts of such welfare benefits have been extensively studied and published theoretically. It is prudent though, to know at least the ranges of the quantitative estimates of these impacts. The study sought to provide empirical literature on the level of influence of continuous granting of humanitarian food aid by NGOs on rural citizens’ perspective towards labour and production. The study implemented a maximum binary Probit model to determine the possible influence on each variable on households approach towards work. The study found that persistent food relief among other variables such as gender of household leader, size of household and education level attained were significant in influencing work ethic among recipients of humanitarian assistance.