| Summary USAID/Zimbabwe
has been assisting Zimbabwe's Communal Areas Management Program for Indigenous
Resources (CAMPFIRE) since 1989 through the US$28.1 million Natural Resources
Management (NRM) Program. The program’s purpose is to strengthen the capacities
of participating rural communities for sustainable natural resources management
and use. Activity Profile Despite
the tremendous turmoil and increasingly negative country image and condition,
this program continues to achieve tangible progress towards its conservation-based
community development (CBNRM) objectives. CAMPFIRE membership has now expanded
to 49 districts, representing almost the entirety of the country’s poor rural
Communal Area population. Active program participants (those who manage projects
and regularly benefit from program revenues) consist of approximately 100,000
households scattered across some 115 wards in 18 districts throughout the country.
For the latest year that complete figures are available (2001), CAMPFIRE
earned total revenues of US$ 2.2 million, despite a significant downturn in the
country’s tourism sector. This significant Zimbabwean CBNRM program has now earned
a cumulative total of more than US$ 20.1 million. Historically, approximately
half of these revenues have been disbursed directly to participating communities
as cash payments to households or for community projects (with much of the balance
being used in support of local program activities and objectives). Despite
concerted efforts at program diversification, sport hunting remains the single
largest source of program revenue, accounting for about 90% of total Program revenues.
In view of the negative tourism environment, this trend is expected to continue
until the country situation changes to the point where (eco-) tourism is able
to regain its former prominence in the nation’s economy. When conditions
do improve, however, the program is laying a solid foundation for a significant
diversification of CAMPFIRE’s revenue sources. Under CAMPFIRE Development Fund,
we are now finalizing the completion of over 50 small and large CBNRM project
activities throughout the country, including bee-keeping, fisheries and eco-tourism
activities, valued at over ZW$350 million. Ecologically, the program is
also important. In preparation for this year’s CITES conference in Chile, the
program supported the completion of a major nationwide wildlife survey for Zimbabwe
for the first time since 1998. The results of this study support the contention
that wildlife management in CAMPFIRE areas continues to be sustainable, with stable
or increasing numbers of most major sport species evident (contrary to vast wildlife
carnage that has occurred in the ex-commercial farming areas over the past several
years due to the land invasions throughout the country).
Beneficiaries
Ultimate customers are Zimbabwe's poorest rural producer communities
in the country's marginal communal areas.
Local Partners
Major program partners include the lead counterpart organization
- the CAMPFIRE Association, and various other local/regional CBNRM-oriented
NGOs such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF/Zimbabwe).
Implementation Partners
The program's prime Institutional Contractor is Development Associates,
Inc.
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