One afternoon in the early 1990s, a group of pupils at the primary school I attended performed a drama about the Tsotso (twigs) stove (an improved biomass cookstove) to raise awareness about clean cooking. The message was simple: the open fires or simple metal stoves used for cooking in our villages were harmful and contributing …
Tag: Climate Change
Poverty’s Stubborn Persistence, Clean Cooking and Climate Change: The 2025 Global Poverty Wake-Up Call that No One Can Afford to Ignore
Global poverty remains stubbornly persistent. The just-released 2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report delivers a hard truth: the world is losing the war on poverty. In previous years, as I blogged earlier here, the number of people living in acute multidimensional poverty has hovered above 1 billion, and nothing much has changed today: 1.1 …
Carbon Credits, Rural Gains: Zimbabwe’s New Path to Ending Poverty
As the urgency of the global climate crisis intensifies, carbon credits are emerging as one of the most promising market-driven solutions to climate change. However, behind every carbon credit lies a rural community, often in the Global South, where poverty is deeply entrenched. These communities not only provide a conducive environment for implementing carbon projects …
Continue reading Carbon Credits, Rural Gains: Zimbabwe’s New Path to Ending Poverty
Now that the COP29 dust has settled, a silo approach to tackling climate change and poverty will not effectively address either challenge
Photo credit: IIED As I write this blog, Cyclone Chido is calming down in Zimbabwe, my home country, after causing significant destruction of houses, infrastructure and livelihoods, as well as injuries and tragic loss of life in Mayotte, Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi, as reported here, here, here and here. The cyclone comes on the heels …
Why is COP28 crucial not only for tackling climate change but also for poverty eradication?
Photo Credit: FINANCIAL Fortune It is undeniable that the world is facing unprecedented and devastating extreme weather events, such as catastrophic cyclones and relentlessly high temperatures, as reported here and here. 2023 has been the deadliest year on record, marked as it was by extreme weather events that have wreaked havoc: thousands of lives have …
Blessing Gweshengwe PhD 