Child-Centred Approaches to Climate Change and Food Insecurity: Evaluating Vulnerabilities and Interventions in Mbire, Zimbabwe
摘要
This study investigates how climate change undermines children’s rights to food security and nutrition in Mbire District, Zimbabwe, and evaluates the effectiveness of child-centred interventions in protecting these rights. Grounded in the climate justice imperatives, the study employs mixed-method research combining qualitative data from interviews, focus groups, and participatory tools with quantitative nutritional assessments. The research explores the mechanisms through which climate impacts, including droughts, erratic rainfall, and agricultural collapse, systematically violate children’s rights to survival, development, health, and education. The study reveals critical gaps between policy frameworks and ground-level child protection by evaluating three interventions (the Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition, the Utariri Project, and the Integrated School Feeding Program) through an integrated lens of ecological systems theory and the child rights approach. Findings demonstrate that while current programmes offer valuable support, they fail to address the full scope of climate change impacts on children’s rights. The chapter proposes an Integrated Child-Centred Climate Resilience Program that combines climate-smart agriculture, child-focused education, and multi-stakeholder collaboration to strengthen food security and children’s rights in climate-vulnerable communities.