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Background: Child marriage is a global crisis underpinned by gender inequality and discrimination against girls. A small evidence base suggests that food insecurity crises can be both a driver and a consequence of child marriage. However, these linkages are still ambiguous. This paper aims to understand how food insecurity influences child marriage practices in Chiredzi, Zimbabwe. Methods: Mixed methods, including participant-led storytelling via SenseMaker® and key informant interviews, were employed to examine the relationship between food insecurity and child marriage within a broader context of gender and socio-economic inequality. We explored the extent to which food insecurity elevates adolescent girls' risk of child marriage; and how food insecurity influences child marriage decision-making among caregivers and adolescents. Key patterns that were generated by SenseMaker participants' interpretations of their own stories were visually identified in the meta-data, and then further analyzed. Semi-structured guides were used to facilitate key informant interviews. Interviews were audio-recorded, and transcribed and translated to English, then imported into NVivo for coding and thematic analysis. Results: A total of 1,668 community members participated in SenseMaker data collection, while 22 staff participated in interviews. Overall, we found that food insecurity was a primary concern among community members. Food insecurity was found to be among the contextual factors of deprivation that influenced parents' and adolescent girls' decision making around child marriage. Parents often forced their daughters into marriage to relieve the household economic burden. At the same time, adolescents are initiating their own marriages due to limited alternative survival opportunities and within the restraints imposed by food insecurity, poverty, abuse in the home, and parental migration. COVID-19 and climate hazards exacerbated food insecurity and child marriage, while education may act as a modifier that reduces girls' risk of marriage. Conclusions: Our exploration of the associations between food insecurity and child marriage suggest that child marriage programming in humanitarian settings should be community-led and gender transformative to address the gender inequality that underpins child marriage and address the needs and priorities of adolescent girls. Further, programming must be responsive to the diverse risks and realities that adolescents face to address the intersecting levels of deprivation and elevate the capacities of adolescent girls, their families, and communities to prevent child marriage in food insecure settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the authors discuss multi‐level systems for parenting in Harare, Zimbabwe. At the micro‐system level, the Tirere Pamwe parenting program is a supportive, empowering prototype, designed to educate parents on child development, with a special focus on socio‐emotional development, from birth to age 18 years. The program has been delivered to a diverse group of parents, in diverse settings, which has helped to bring a greater contextual relevance to parenting practices, and seems thereby to have increased the mental well‐being of children. At the macro‐system level, international law and Zimbabwaean laws emphasise the need to protect children from both physical and psychological harm. These different layers are examined through the varying theoretical perspectives of community psychologist Julian Rappaport ( , , , , ), such as his emphasis on paradox, empowerment, second‐order change, and narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AS THE HIV AND AIDS crisis the world over continues to render orphaned and vulnerable, more and more children, the situation calls for stake holders to adopt a collaborative approach to the protection, care and support of these vulnerable children. Zimbabwe has shown her commitment to the protection of vulnerable children through the implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP) for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC), and more specifically, the Programme of Support (PoS) mechanism imbued in the plan. The paper examines Zimbabwe's experience to-date with regard to implementation of the PoS, and posits that the PoS does indeed appear a viable strategy for providing coordinated support for OVC programmes. The authors however take a step back to reflect on the events leading to the creation of the PoS, and then consider the current state of affairs in respect of the performance of this strategy. Challenges that organisations are likely to face in accessing funds from the PoS are highlighted. Several suggestions aimed at strengthening the process of implementing the PoS are made, and these include a call for the mobilisation of additional resources to enable more organisations to get on board, to ensure that more children are reached with quality programmes. The paper observes that notwithstanding the fact that the strategy comes with challenges and uncertainties, the PoS is a new, innovative and viable approach to programming for OVC. As such this calls for adaptability, flexibility and willingness to learn, on the part of all stake holders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children are a very important resource for any country and their well-being is critical for sustained socioeconomic development. Consequently all societies generally work towards protecting their children and Zimbabwe is no exception. This paper considers how child protection has evolved in Zimbabwe overtime. It starts by looking at child protection in traditional Zimbabwean society in the context of the ubuntu concept. The paper then proceeds to examine child protection in modern day Zimbabwe. In this regard, it first considers the various international and regional instruments relating to children, to which Zimbabwe is a party i.e. the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), among others, and the role these have played in respect of child protection in Zimbabwe. The paper then surveys child protection in Zimbabwe in the context of the different layers of protection for children including the nuclear and extended families, the community, the state and non-governmental organisations. Following this, it briefly considers challenges encountered in child protection in Zimbabwe, arguing that certain policies may appear positive on paper but be poorly implemented. Finally, in an effort to look into the future, the paper gives some recommendations. In this regard it urges all stakeholders to give undivided attention to child protection issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children have the right to participate in all matters that affect them-including national policies, such as Zimbabwe's National Action Plan (NAP) for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children. Officially launched in September 2005, the NAP's primary strategy for facilitating child participation is to nurture child representation on the committees charged with plan implementation. This paper studies several existing NAP committees and comments on their progress in using child representation to facilitate child participation, as well as the challenges they are facing. Based on these reflections, it identifies opportunities for creating a broad range of mechanisms for child participation and meaningful roles for children in NAP initiatives and institutions. Recommendations include developing child-friendly policy information, ensuring child representatives have a constituency, and offering child participation trainings for children and adults. These recommendations are important considerations for any organizations and government ministries working to make child participation in national policies a reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]