04/09/2025
A remarkable Exchange : Locally Led Adaptation Action against Climate Change.
This was a learning exchange on Locally Led Adaptation (LLA), and the teachers were the very people who lived the lessons.
Guides were members of the Bulawayo Federation of the Homeless and Poor, together Dialogue on Shelter officers. The formal welcome was held in a resource centre in Bulawayo, its walls lined with maps and charts.
Mum Sazini Ndlovu together with Page Skangezile explained how everything goes within the federation "This was a partnership. Our savings, pooled through Gungano Fund, our sweat, and the city's support through the Informal Settlement Improvement Project. We collected the data, we proved the need, and we built houses." The Batswana delegates, well-versed in their own federation's savings rituals, leaned in. The discussion that followed was a deep, deliberate dissection of progress reporting. How do you track resilience? It was in the number of secure tenure certificates, the meters of water pipes laid, the houses that now could withstand a storm. It was in the tangible asset of a home, a fortress against climate and poverty.
The theory of our discussions found its roaring, practical engine at the Senzokuhle Waste Pickers cooperative. Here, a group of mothers and grandmothers had transformed the shame of scouring dumps into a dignified, profitable enterprise. The air, instead of reeking of decay, hummed with industry. Conveyor belts of women sorted a mountain of waste with practised efficiency: clear PET, green PET, HDPE, paper, metal. The groups coordinator, held up a bale of compressed plastic bottles. "This was blocking our drains, breeding malaria. Now, it buys school uniforms and secures our futures. We are cleaning our environment and building our economy together." The Botswana delegates, whose own communities were choked with plastic, saw a blueprint not just for waste management, but for community-powered transformation.
The scale of this vision was amplified at Ngoma Mine. What was once a scar on the land was now a hive of green entrepreneurship. A joint project between the youth and mother savings groups had created a recycling hub. A young man in his twenties, explained, "The women collect and sort. We youth also do the same, collect and sort, negotiate with manufacturers in Bulawayo and yet to explore the Harare market. The income supports our families and funds our own projects. Waste is not a waste here. It is a resource we were just not seeing."
But the most potent vision of the future was saved for last. At Herentals Nkulumane Secondary School, we were led to a classroom structure. Inside was a miracle—a lush, green garden growing not from the parched earth, but from water and air. The hydroponic system, 2 litre bottles with nutrient-rich water, supported thriving green runner beans.
Students, explained in confidence, the science. "No soil means no need for land we don't have. It uses 90% less water than a field. We are learning to defeat drought with knowledge." The delegation learned that this same system, pioneered here, was already being replicated at the Federation’s resource centre, aiming to tackle food insecurity head-on.
This narrative of community organisation leading to formal recognition culminated in a meeting at the Bulawayo City Council chambers. The atmosphere was not one of supplication but of partnership. Federation leaders, armed with their self-collected data, sat across the table from city engineers and planners. The dialogue was technical, focused on housing improvement and funding issues.The Batswana delegates watched, mesmerised. This was the ultimate fruit of LLA: the community had organised itself into a competent, credible entity that the city had to engage with as an equal partner. The Urban Poor Fund discussions they had over meals were no longer abstract; they were the very engine that made this negotiation possible.
The trip had been more than insightful; it had been transformative.
We have seen the entire ecosystem of LLA in action: from the foundational power of savings groups and the Urban Poor Fund, to the tangible outcomes of housing and recycling enterprises, all the way to the advanced innovation of hydroponics and the hard-won seat at the council table. We saw that resilience was not a single project, but a tapestry woven from community savings, environmental adaptation, youth enterprise, and relentless advocacy.
We returned to Botswana not with just ideas, but with a proven blueprint and renewed fire. The exchange had been a spark, igniting a dozen new possibilities. And we knew, with absolute certainty, that to build a resilient future, we needed to keep learning from each other. This was only the first chapter. It was worth repeating, again and again, until the knowledge spread like water, nurturing every community in its path.
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