A government survey has revealed that Matabeleland North and South provinces top the statistics of families with widows compared to other provinces.
The statistics are contained in a 2024 Zimbabwe Livelihoods Assessment Committee (ZimLAC) Rural Livelihoods Assessment (RLA) report under the characteristics of household head: marital status section.
“Matabeleland South (27.3%) had the highest proportion of household heads who were widowed against the national proportion of 23.6%,” the report reads.
“The average age of the household heads was 54.9 years.
“About 37.7% of the households were female-headed and the highest proportion was recorded in Matabeleland North (44.3%).
“Elderly- headed households constituted 26.4% whilst child-headed households were 0.3%.”
The report does not give reasons why the majority of families in the two provinces are headed by widows,
Reports, however, indicate that the majority of families in the two provinces have family members based mainly in South Africa and Botswana.
About 87.9% of heads of households attained some form of education.
On religion, the report noted that most of the household heads belonged to the apostolic sect (34.7%) while 12.2% were Pentecostal members.
The proportion of households with orphans was 13%.
On chronic conditions indications were that the proportion of households with a member who had a chronic illness was 10.1%.
“Hypertension/high blood pressure (3.2%) and HIV/AIDS (2.9%) were the major chronic conditions cited,” the report reads.
“The proportion of households with at least one person living with any form of disability was 3.5%.”
The report also touched on the hunger situation revealing how many families were receiving any form of support from the government and the donor community.
According to the report, the majority of households (43%) reported having received support from the government followed by the United Nations and donor agencies at 6%.
Other respondents (5%) got support from relatives based in the cities and towns.
“This is attributed to the decline in food insecurity prevalence from 38% during the 2022/23 season to 26% in the 2023/24 season,” the report reads.
“In addition, this also indicates the strengthened communities’ adaptive capacities in an environment characterised by climatic, economic, health and social challenges.
“Nationally, the proportion of households that received social assistance from the different sources decreased compared to 2023, except for support from charity groups which remained constant at 1%.”
However, the report noted that the proportion of households that received support from the government decreased from 66% in 2023 to 43% in 2024.
The support from UN and donor agencies also decreased from 12% in 2023 to 6% in 2024.
“The majority of households received crop inputs (33.6%) and food (15.2%) from the government,” the report read.
“Crop inputs support was highest in Mashonaland Central (48.5%) whilst Matabeleland South (18.2%) had the lowest.
“Food support was highest in Midlands (23.6%) and Mashonaland Central (23.5%) and lowest in Mashonaland West (7.7%).”
The report added: Households mostly received food (2.9%) followed by crop inputs (0.9%) from UN/NGOs. Masvingo (7.4%) had the highest proportion of households that received food support from UN/NGOs. Mashonaland Central (1.5%) had the highest crop input support from UN/NGOs whilst Mashonaland West (0.3%) had the lowest.”
Zimbabwe is in the midst of a devastating El Nino induced drought that has left millions in urgent need of food aid, according to the government and humanitarian agencies.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has declared the drought a national disaster, and appealed for US$3.3 billion in humanitarian assistance.
ZimLAC is a consortium of government, development partners, UN, NGOs, Technical agencies and academia which was established in 2002 and is led and regulated by the government.