Water is central to the Zimbabwean economy, people's livelihoods and their social well-being; its availability and reliability is a function of highly variable climatic conditions. Irrigated agriculture is the major water using sector while rain fed agriculture depends on reliable rainfall.

Kilombero Plantations Ltd (KPL) is a 5,818 hectare (ha) rice plantation located in the heart of the fertile Kilombero Valley, Tanzania. In addition to developing a large-scale rice farm, KPL works with local smallholder farmers through an outgrower model based on System of Rice Intensification (SRI) technologies.

Extractive Industries (EI) explore, find, extract, process and market sub-soil assets – oil, gas and mined minerals. EI represent a large and growing activity in many less-developed countries. But natural resource wealth does not always lead to sustainable and inclusive growth. This guide sets out the recent rise in importance of EI to less-developed countries. It provides a framework for thinking about (i) the socio-economic impacts of these industries and (ii) the relationship between EI, host country public policies and donor activities.

The guide:

This paper, which focuses on the Chinyanja Triangle (CT), an area inside the Zambezi River Basin, characterises three distinct farming subsystems across rainfall gradients, namely maize-beans-fish, sorghum-millet-livestock and the livestock-dominated subsystem. It presents the socioeconomic characteristics, historical drivers of change, resources use and management (water, land, forestry) and the institutional disincentives affecting agricultural production and productivity in the region.

Climate change prompts policymakers to pursue a low carbon energy pathway in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, this can lead to trade-offs with other sustainability objectives. This policy brief outlines key issues relating to biodiversity and the development of the hydropower sector in Vietnam. It is aimed at informing policymakers, civil society and donors. It argues that the large-scale development of the country’s hydropower sector is being undertaken without due consideration of the impacts that this is having on the nation’s biodiversity.

Sector approaches to combating corruption have gained momentum in recent years, yet the strategic prioritization of sector anti-corruption initiatives is still the exception. The National Water Directorate in Mozambique is one of the few public sector departments in the world known to have allocated its own resources to developing a sector-specific anti-corruption strategy. Its experience offers valuable lessons for others considering integrating anti-corruption in sectors.

Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is key to ensuring that local communities' livelihoods needs are met through the sustainable management of natural resources. Policies promoting CBNRM mean that government agencies, non-governmental organisations and other service providers are increasingly becoming involved in supporting these communities to form natural resource management (NRM) groups to make progress in areas of resource governance and realise its economic benefits through natural resource based enterprise.

This final report presents the findings of the two year IIED MMSD [minerals, mining and sustainable development] project sponsored by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). It outlines in detail the MMSD multistakeholder process - which included regional patnerships, national projects, global workshops and a range of commissioned research, presentations and bulletins - before presenting a detailed analysis of the sector through the many stages of minerals and metals exploration, production, use, reuse, recycling, and final disposal.

This report cautions against an overly rigid approach to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which it argues could limit development options for poor countries, particularly in how they are able to manage critical water resources. It identifies key challenges such as setting realistic targets, carefully considering the local context to address the needs of the poor, and promoting sustainable water resources development in a way that values healthy ecosystems.

In Tanzania like in other parts of the global South, in the name of 'development' and 'poverty eradication' vast tracts of land have been earmarked by the government to be developed by investors for different commercial agricultural projects, giving rise to the contested land grab phenomenon. In parallel, Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM ) has been promoted in the country and globally as the governance framework that seeks to manage water resources in an efficient, equitable and sustainable manner.

This report is primarily based on a review of research into the role of voluntary activities in the mining sector.