Historically, Zimbabwe’s urban population enjoyed high water supply and sanitation
service levels and standards, having one of the highest coverage levels in Africa. However,
over the last two decades, the quality of Zimbabwe’s urban water supply and sanitation
services has slowly been eroded. The poor, displaced and disenfranchised Zimbabweans
that occupy Harare’s informal urban settlements are vulnerable to challenges posed by
unavailability of basic water and sanitation services. This qualitative research project,
carried out between January and June 2013 in Harare’s Hopley and Retreat informal
settlements, investigates factors that have been preventing delivery of basic sanitation
services to residents in these two settlements.
Presenting evidence from the two informal settlements of Hopley and Retreat, this research
establishes that there is a complex relationship at play between policy processes, the
prevailing political environment and the way in which institutions have responded to the
problem of sanitation in these settlements. The study was undertaken towards the end of an
era of a negotiated Government of National Unity between ZANU-PF and the Movement
for Democratic Change, highlights the dominance of power and political contestation
between the two parties that has spilled into policy decisions on basic service provision in
the informal settlements. The deep rooted culture of political violence which characterised
the political environment from 2000 onwards, with very little commitment to democratic
processes, was instrumental in the development of Hopley settlement after the 2005
elections. At face value, ZANU-PF was providing displaced people with alternative
accommodation. However, as Muzondidya notes, this along with other ZANU-PF strategies
is ‘(c)onsistent with its hegemonic political culture… to engage in cosmetic political and
economic reforms that will not result in further democracy or result in a loss of its historic
monopoly over power…’ (Muzondidya in Raftopolous, 2013, p.50).
Informal settlements are a relatively new phenomenon in Zimbabwe. However, since their
inception, they have continued to grow, fuelled by ZANU-PF’s strategy to allocate unserviced
residential stands in exchange for residents’ allegiance to the party, with the most
recent illegal residential stand allocations taking place in Chitungwiza town in 2013.