Focus on Africa

Zimbabwe in major land ownership shift

Zimbabwe announces a major shift in its land tenure. Black farmers will get titles for land seized from white farmers but can only sell to "indigenous Zimbabweans"

What's behind the rare flooding in the Sahara Desert?

And a community in Uganda with an unusually high number of blind people.

Presenter: Charles Gitonga Producers: Yvette Twagiramariya, Nyasha Michelle, Rukia Bulle, Bella Hassan and Paul Bakibinga in London. Technical Producer: Francesca Dunne Editors Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi.

Broadcast on:: 10 Oct 2024
Audio Format:: other

Hello and welcome to this podcast from the BBC World Service. Please let us know what you think and tell other people about us on social media. Podcasts from the BBC World Service are supported by advertising. Hey there! Looking to level up your shopping experience? Let me introduce you to Amazon Live. If you haven't heard, it's a shoppable video experience where influencers and creators showcase the latest must-haves all while you shop in real-time. And for those who love some celeb gossip, reality stars like Kyle Richards, Lala Kent, and Friend of the Pod, Paige Disorbaux. On her new show, In Bed with Paige Disorbaux, Paige invites top-tier guests to cozy up in her fluffy bed or they spill secrets, share nighttime routines, and even whip up midnight snacks. Stream and Shop new episodes of her series, In Bed with Paige Disorbaux every Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET by going to amazon.com/live/page_disorbaux. 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New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes of CD-Tails. Hello, I'm Charles Guitonga and here's what's coming up for you on this edition of Focus on Africa. Satellite images show area flooding in the Morokan Sahara Desert. We'll hear an expert opinion on what's happening to the largest hot desert in the world. This significant event of heavy rainfall in the east of Morocco, specifically the one happened recently in the past two days in the Sahara Desert, is actually due to a typical meteorological phenomenon involving an extra topical cyclone. During this period, some places in the southeast of Morocco experienced like a heavy rainfall and a community in Uganda where most people are visually impaired. Lobo community is a community of people that are living with visual impairment or blindness. They are around 25 people, adults, who are visually impaired and also children. So, it's like the whole area of Lobo has more people who are visually impaired than many other areas in Eastern Uganda. It's Thursday, October 10th. First, we go to Zimbabwe. It was once known as the bread basket of Africa, but ownership of land is one of the most topical and controversial issues in Zimbabwe. The controversy dates back to the colonial times, but has over the years continued as governments try to implement what they think is right. One of those policies was the first truck land reform program launched by former President Robert Mugabe in the year 2000. Under the program, Zimbabwe forcibly took land acquired by white farmers during the colonial era and leased it back to black farmers. Our correspondent will give us more details about that, but first forward today, the Government of President Emma Son Nangagua has announced a compensation program for those who lost their land under the Mugabe policy. At the same time, the lease agreements given to black farmers will be replaced with permanent land titles, giving them outright ownership of the properties. Here's the BBC's Shingai Noka, who started by giving us the context. How did the white farmers acquire this land in the first place? Well, it was through the ancestors, largely the colonialists. In this case, it was Cecil John Rhodes. In the late 1800s, came up from South Africa and decided that Zimbabwean land was good. The land was largely fertile and it was good for agriculture and also for mining. And so that really set in motion the takeover of land from the locals that were there at the time. And the takeovers were violent. They were had to taxes. And so for about 90 years that prevailed until Zimbabwe went to war against the colonial government and won that war. And one of the key policies, one of the key reasons that they went to the war was to be able to get back the land that had been taken. Something happened in the year 2000, then, because the then-president, Robert Mugabe, came up with this fast-track land reform program. How was it executed? Initially, at the time, they were called land-hungry people when they first started taking over the farms because they were frustrated at the pace at which the government was buying the farms and resettling them. Robert Mugabe's government arrested them. But then, for political reasons, they would allow people that were taking over the farms to do so. And what followed was really a violent takeover of those farms where the white farmers were kicked off sometimes overnight was just the clothes on their back. So the farmers that were affected, the white farmers, were they compensated at the time or was they at least in a plan to do that? At the time, there was a lot of rhetoric that there would be no compensation because after all, they stole the land a bit with a lot of political pressure from Europe and America, essentially the Western countries. Robert Mugabe, the then-president, changed his rhetoric to say that they would pay for the improvements on the land and not for the land itself. There really were no major efforts in the same way that has happened under this current government to pay that compensation for the improvements. But there are a lot of different types of farmers. The foreign farmers that were protected under bilateral protection agreements. And so those really were a priority for President Robert Mugabe to compensate, even though that hasn't happened to the extent that the farmers would like to. So, Shingai, you've told us that under Mugabe, there was just a lot of rhetoric about compensation which did not happen for the most part. Why is it that the current president, Nangago, has made the decision to compensate? It's a very political matter and the fact is that the Western countries have put a lot of pressure on Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe was essentially isolated economically with sanctions after the violent takeover of those farms. And so to be able to re-engage with the Western countries, one of the requirements is that Zimbabwe pays the compensation that it has promised to. And so what we've seen since 2020 is that the Zimbabwe government signed what was called a global political agreement, compensation agreement with the white farmers, to the tune of three and a half billion US dollars. But I must say that that hasn't really materialized. Zimbabwe is still trying to decide how it's going to finance it because it's still a really controversial topic. Not a lot of people believe that the government should even be paying compensation for the improvements. Shingai talked to us then about this new land ownership policy where the black farmers will be able to get permanent title deeds. Well, one of the things over the last 25 years is that when the government seized the land, they decided that they would retain ownership of the land that had been taken, that the black farmers would receive 99 year leases and what the government has called off a letters. But that has had its own set of problems. So what the government has decided is that they want to change the policy. And this comes after a lot of lobbying from the farmers. And so they are saying that instead of the limited term title, they want to now give permanent ownership of the land. They're describing it not as a title deed, but as a document that's bankable, transferable and registrable. It remains to be seen whether that document will in effect be accepted by the banks. Is the main thing that then the farmers feel they need to be able to use this title for what exactly, why do they feel they really need it? Essentially, it's for financing. A lot of them didn't have collateral on their own. They didn't have title deeds, so they didn't own homes. And so they really weren't able to put up any kind of collateral that's required to run a successful farming enterprise. The other issue is that because the title, the 99 year leases, were rather tenuous. The farmers really didn't invest long term infrastructure into the ground because they weren't sure whether they'd be able to hold on to those farms. And so making this title permanent, allowing it to be transferable to their children, for example, it's easier the government believes for the banks to be able to loan the farmers and to give them the confidence that they are settled on this land permanently. And they can actually start investing in it. Right. So this seizure of land, then, under Mugabe's leadership had a negative impact on the country's economy and politically. Just explain to us how bad it was. Well, the largest impact were the economic sanctions, where Western countries, which formed really the backbone of Zimbabwe's economy, the export markets, whether it was to Europe and the European Union. And Britain and the US and Australia, all of those lines were cut off, agriculture, which was the backbone of the economy collapsed. And so we've seen as a result of that economic collapsed across the board, where the exchange rate has collapsed, all of the goods and services, all of the goods in particular that Zimbabwe used to produce. If you drive around the countryside, many, many farms that used to be productive are just lying, fellow. There isn't a lot of production happening on them. And so I think the idea is, as the government says, is to unlock the value, the title from the ownership of the farm in order of the farms to be able to ramp up the agricultural production. Shungai, thank you for your time. Thank you. The BBC's Shungai Noka in Harare. And now, in the vast, sun-baked stretches of Morocco's Sahara Desert regions, something unexpected has happened. Heavy rains that fell in the months of August and September have given life to a landscape more accustomed to drought. Imagine the sand valleys and dunes in a place where temperatures soar and rainfall is scarce, suddenly transformed into lagoons. One lake called Lake Iriqui has been dry for over 50 years and now has sprung back to life. Expats say these recent events could change the Sahara Desert's climate for years to come. To understand why this is happening, I've been speaking with Fatna Ikram, an environmental engineer and co-founder of Youth for Climate in Morocco. This significant event of heavy rainfall in the east of Morocco, specifically the one that happened recently in the past few days in the Sahara Desert, is actually due to a typical meteorological phenomenon involving an extra topical cyclone. So, during this period, some places in the southeast of Morocco experienced like a heavy rainfall. And this is actually beyond the annual average. And this is actually a remarkable event in this region. For example, if we take, like, Tata is one of, you know, the most affected region, usually gets under 250 millimeters of precipitation per year. Although this actually, you know, uncorrated a substantial rainfall during this interval. So, according to Morocco's general directory of meteorology, they indicate that such intense precipitation over a brief period has now occurred in 30 or to 50 years. So, this events the extra topical storm introduced like humid air that interacted with the arid desert environment and this actually results in heavy precipitation. Like experts said that climate also can, or may, contribute by augmenting air moisture, hence raising likelihood of severe weather occurrence. And how does this change then with more rainfall coming to the area? How does this, you know, change life for their local communities there? Well, these unusual events and this intense precipitation presents like both prospects and obstacles for local communities. So, the plentiful water expected to recharge actually significant ground water aquifers under the desert, which are essential actually for water supply in this region that suffer from water scarcity. And the abrupt and severe precipitation also resulted in other catastrophic like flash floats and like over 20 individuals that are due to this event. And also the agriculture yields were compromised. So, the Moroccan government was compelled to disperse emergency assistance funding, especially for regions like for the southern regions that still, you know, recuperating from the last years earthquake. So, yeah, the infrastructure residents and the agriculture also were adversely affected and the communities comfort the urgent challenge of reconstruction and recovery from these events. Right. And what about the environment? What are some of the potential ecological consequences of this? Because I'd assume, you know, the organisms or the animals and the vegetation in the desert were sort of used to that desert life, but now there's water. Yeah, there was like potential ecological consequence, because the sudden influx of water has the potential to disrupt the life cycle of desert adapted species and introduce invasive species that compete with the native flora and fauna. So, yeah, the subsequent dehydrated process could result in the off organisms that have colonized this area is potentially causing like ecological imbalances. And I'm wondering if this phenomenon is also being experienced in other countries as well, where the Sahara desert cuts across. Yes, there was like other countries that suffer or they experienced the same events and the same consequences, such as Nigeria and Sudan, due to the heavy rainfall that actually lead to the floods in the region. So, yeah, this is actually unexpected events in such an area that they suffer from, you know, extreme weather due to the climate change. Islam, is this now the new normal? Are the authorities expecting that this will happen every now and then that we're going to have much more rain in southeast Morocco in a part that is known to be a desert? It's a lot of actually difficult to predict with certainty, but like possibly the such rare events could become more frequent than they have been in the past years or in the past decades. So instead of being events that happen once like every few decades, we might see them occurring at shorter intervals. And this doesn't guarantee that the region will experience the same level of rainfall regularly, but it suggests that extreme weather events could become like less uncommon. So, predicting the exact timing of such events require like detailed climate modeling and continues monitoring of weather patterns. So, I'm saying this actually and mythologist are working out to understand how climate change affects regional climates to improve the accuracy of such prediction in this region. And at the same time, it will be prudent for local communities and authorities to prepare to have like frequent extreme weather events like these, both to mitigate potential risks and to take advantage of any benefits such as increased water availability. All right, thank you very much for your time, Vikram. Thank you. Thank you. Hey there. Looking to level up your shopping experience? Let me introduce you to Amazon Live. If you haven't heard, it's a shoppable video experience where influencers and creators showcase the latest must haves all while you shop in real time. And for those who love some celeb gossip, reality stars like Kyle Richards, Lala Kent, and friend of the pod, Paige Disarbo. On her new show, in bed with Paige Disarbo, Paige invites top tier guests to cozy up in her fluffy bed where they spill secrets, share nighttime routines, and even whip up midnight snacks. Stream and shop new episodes of her series in bed with Paige Disarbo every Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET by going to Amazon.com/live/page_disarbo. Or you can watch Amazon Live's new live TV channel on freebie or prime video under the DIY section and shop along on your phone. Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous to your contracts, they said, "What the f*ck are you talking about? You insane Hollywood f*ck!" So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at Mint Mobile.com/Switch. To Uganda now, in a remote community called LUBU along the shores of Lake Victoria, nearly all residents there are either blind or visually impaired. The situation is made worse by a lack of enough medical care and most of those affected hardly get to know the cause of the blindness. In Uganda, more than 3 million people suffer from loss of sight according to the international agency for the prevention of blindness. The BBC's Agnes Panda visited this community and joined me to talk about life there. Agnes, welcome to the Focus on Africa podcast. Could you start by telling me about this community that you visited and what makes them so special? LUBU community is a community of people that are living with visual impairment or blindness. They are around 25 people, adults who are visually impaired and also children amongst this community. So it's like the whole area of LUBU has more people who are visually impaired than many other areas in Eastern Uganda. When you got there, what did you see? How is it that they carry their business around? They love each other. This is a community that is very tight-knit. They have meetings every Monday, they discuss issues to do with their families, they discuss to do with education of their children, they discuss health. So they do everything together really. We formed the LUBU blind group after realizing that the town was isolating us just because we are blind. We face a lot of challenges from thieves who target us because of our disability to unfair treatment when it comes to dividing family assets and for some of us finding a marriage partner is difficult. We talk about how we can support ourselves and keep our children in school, how we can feed and clothe them. So it's a very tight community. There's a lot of love. So you may not even notice that people are visually impaired from the way they are talking, they're communicating, they're laughing together, singing together. So it's quite a joyful community really. And how do they feed these 25 people that have formed a community? How do they feed in the general village of this place that you visited? So LUBU was once a school for the blind and some of them decided to stay on after this school was closed. There was once a disease called river blindness, we're still there. But then that time it was very many cases in the early 2000s. So after some time the disease was eradicated from the area or there are now fewer cases, but then some people stayed on in the school and they continued this community. So the people around them, they interact pretty well, but also what I discovered is that there are also people who are visually impaired around the community that is around them. So it's not strange for someone to see someone who is visually impaired and for them to talk together and be as a community as a whole. So there's this cohesion where they just fit in with everybody else really. And what are the reasons behind such a high rate of blindness in the village and in this specific community? So apart from river blindness which was there in the early 2000s and some people that were blind at that time are still blind. So there are other causes like trachoma, glaucoma, these also high blood pressure, according to the doctors that we visited in the area that have been seeing these people in LUBU. Talking about those as the causes of blindness in the area and especially the issue of people not being able to access medical care, there wasn't much happening on the ground. What we found is that people are even struggling to find doctors. There is only one doctor for the whole county, one specialist that is looking after all these people when they have issues with their eyes. The people really just want to have more healthcare, more people on the ground to assist them, more doctors or even more dispensers because they found that one dispenser is in the next town. There is only just that one doctor that we spoke to that is able to handle all that big group of people. So there isn't really so much that we can say is being done apart from just people visiting the local dispenser and seeing if there is something that they can get. What then is the government doing about the issue of blindness in Uganda as a whole and are there steps that are being taken to improve IKEA services because you say this place is quite remote in a rural setting, what's the government doing to help them? The place is a narrow setting and also there are very few eye doctors or eye specialists in Uganda. When we spoke to a government official in Kampala, it spoke about how the government is planning in financing higher education for doctors so that they can be able to study and they can have more specialists especially in the issue of IKEA. We are trading doctors, the government is encouraging me, the doctors to go for master's in ophthalmology, they can become specialists in IKEA. As I talk now, there is serious scholarship, scholarship government puts up their money, their people to go and study for free, come and pay for you to go and do master's, they will specialize in IKEA. They wish to have more doctors in those areas and also they are planning to have more outreaches, to be able to go to the ground and talk to the people so that they can be able to get them the right medication. Though this they say does not happen often, so that is one of the things that they say they are going to be doing more often so to ensure that there are less people who have eye problems in that part of Uganda. And are there you know some hopes and aspirations of this lube community moving forward, what did they tell you about that? Oh yes, they are very hopeful, one of the things that makes them very happy is that they are saying they are hoping for a very good future for their children. I spoke with Moses Mugabe who is their group leader and was talking about how he wishes his children to go for higher education and this is what he had to say. The only hope and prayer I have for my children, I want them to complete their education. I need them to graduate with degrees, masters and even PhDs. When they are educated enough, nobody will notice that they are blind, people will look at their achievements and there will be a source of inspiration for others. And that's a voice of Moses Mugabe who is a community leader in Lube. So Agnes you mentioned sort of the medical conditions that you heard from the community and the medical doctors, but are there other reasons that could lead to these things that you found out that make blindness so prevalent? From what we heard from the doctor that we visited in Mayugget town that is a few kilometers away, those are the ones that they were able to give us. Although in the community we are saying that or they feel like this thing could be hereditary, but when you speak to the doctor, he says this is not. And in fact, the main reason why going to the extent that is going that people are getting blind is because when they fall sick, they do not go to the hospital immediately or they use traditional medication. So that one makes the eyesight worthy. I'm sure there are many other places, many other communities, either in Uganda or other African countries or people, you know, medical care is not the best for eyesight for other diseases as well. Do people sort of think something else could be linked to this? Because it does sound like a bit of an unusual situation, not what you are used to to work into a community where you have so many people suffering from visual impairment. So people are talking about it could be witchcraft. That is one of the things that the doctors are saying is delaying medication. When someone believes it's witchcraft, they run to the witch doctor. They give a concussion to put on their eyes and then that could even affect their eyes further. Right. And therefore, what are some of the most pressing challenges that the residents shared with you, especially you just mentioned it access to healthcare, but what about other things like education? The schools are far to get a school that has children who are visually impaired and they can fit in comfortably. It's more like you travel to a whole different town and then the road network is not very good. It's quite remote. So there's those challenges of getting education for their children. Those are talking about economic challenges, finances being hard to come by. The projects which are not working right now that used to finance them. And then so they're talking about struggles, maybe of not being able to fund education for their children. That is actually one of the biggest challenges that they're facing as a community. So they're struggling a lot on that. That's what they talked about the most, that they really want their children to go to school and to do better in life, but then they're struggling to find school fees and other ways to assist them. So that was what came up the most, the finances. Right. You spent time with this community. Could you share a particular moment that you felt was moving or a story that you found in LUBU that stood out to you? What I saw that was really interesting is how everyone's child is everyone's child. One person's child is everybody's child, like children in the community are ready to help anyone. And if an adult wants to go to a place or to their house, they just grab anyone who is near them to assist them to work there. So I found this to be very interesting. If you compare it to maybe other areas, you wouldn't just send anyone or ask anyone to assist you. So they are really close and then you won't even notice that they're visually impaired until you look at them. So life just goes on as normal. They cook, they do everything that they're supposed to. They do to get by and you won't notice that unless you look at someone and how they're working, you won't really know that these people are visually impaired and the joy that they have is what touched me the most. Maybe, Penn, as you close for us, what really drove you to do their story to go to Uganda and do their story? I was just going through some research I was working on for disability and I found out that is a group of people that actually visually impaired and I found out this is a very special group and I really was drawn to them. I wanted to know, find out how do they live together, what happens amongst them, how do they navigate life. So that is why I decided to actually do this story and why not visit them and just find out for myself how it is like to live in Lube. So that is what inspired me. Thank you for your time, Agnes. Thank you so much. The BBC's Agnes Pender. Focus on Africa was put together by Yvette Togiramaria, Nia Shamichell, Rukia Bole, and Bella Hassan in London. The senior producer was Paul Bachibinga, and Francesca Dan was the technical producer. Our editors are Andre Lombard and Ali Smudengi. I'm Charles Litonga, we'll speak again soon. Hey there, looking to level up your shopping experience, let me introduce you to Amazon Live. If you haven't heard, it's a shoppable video experience where influencers and creators showcase the latest must haves all while you shop in real time. And for those who love some celeb gossip, reality stars like Kyle Richards, Lala Kent, and friend of the pod, Paige Disorbo. On her new show, in bed with Paige Disorbo, Paige invites top tier guests to cozy up in her fluffy bed where they spill secrets, share nighttime routines, and even whip up midnight snacks. Stream and shop new episodes of her series in bed with Paige Disorbo every Tuesday at 7pm ET by going to Amazon.com/live/page_disorbo. Or you can watch Amazon Live's new live TV channel on freebie or prime video under the DIY section and shop along on your phone. Hello, I'm Sumis Omaskanda from the Global Story Podcast where we're looking at America's relationship with China. Diplomacy between the world's two largest economies remains characteristically choppy, but could the result of the US presidential election unlock a calmer future? The Global Story brings you unique perspectives from BBC journalists around the world. Find us wherever you get your podcasts. [BLANK_AUDIO]