Situating Zimbabwe's natural resource governance systems in history

Abstract

The article looks at the issues related to the resource management in Zimbabwe in colonial and post colonial period. Prior to the discussion of findings from the study, the author addresses 4 major points related to decentralization: 1) what has to be decentralized? According to the author, rights to access, to withdraw, to manage, to exclude, and to alienate can be entrusted by the state to the local managers; 2) to whom the rights are entrusted? The answer to this question depends on the type of entrustments: rights are tranferred to local groups in case of decentralization and devolution, to private sector in privatization process, and to local branches of government in case of deconcentration and delegation. As for decentralization of natural resource governance systems, the author recommends communities as ideal units to be entrusted. 3) how can decentralized governance system become effective? The author argues that in order to achieve effectiveness, downward accountability must exist between the representatives and the represented. 4) how can the rights be transferred? According to the author, this can be done through legal specification or through political/administrative directives. Major findings from the study area show that during the colonial period, the decentralization of responsibility to resource management existed at the local level in the village head men. However, few powers were vested in the local level managers. In the post colonial period, though the government's idea is to entrust the local managers with more rights and powers, what happens in practice is far from the ideal situation. The decentralization process is still in a top-down manner. As a conclusion, the author recommend that decentralization needs to be based on needs, as he terms it 'demand-driven decentralization', to ensure genuine decentralization and devolution.