ZERO Regional Environment Organisation is the national node in Zimbabwe for the Popular Coalition to Eradicate Hunger and Poverty's "Agrarian Reform Knowledge Network" (ARnet). The Popular Coalition is a global consortium of intergovernmental, civil-society and bilateral organisations committed to the empowerment of the rural poor through increasing their access to land and productive resources. The Popular Coalition's Secretariat is housed in Rome at the headquarters of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

The participating organisations, while diverse in nature and mandate, share a common belief that rural people must be empowered to be effective agents of their own development. The Popular Coalition is a mechanism through which partner organisations can test innovations designed to strengthen participation by the rural poor, enhance strategic policy formation and target resources more effectively. The Popular Coalition's vision is that the partners will incorporate into their organisations the successful results and lessons learned from the initiatives jointly undertaken through the Popular Coalition.

The ARnet programme collects, processes and shares knowledge on successful experiences that demonstrate the ways in which civil society organisations can contribute directly to increasing the rural poor's secure access to land and other productive resources. Activities are currently underway in over 30 countries in Asia, Africa, the Near East, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Zero's involvement in the ARnet programme has taken place in two distinct phases. Phase 1 involved identification of civil society initiatives on land reform and tenurial security. While under phase two, ZERO was required to generate detailed information pertaining to the land reform process in Zimbabwe. More specifically, ZERO was required to:

• Study in detail the spontaneous movements by communal farmers to large-scale farms,
• Identify a broader set of organisations involved in the land reform process and document the contribution made by such organisations, and
• Generate information relating to squatters in the country as well as analysing how policy has been dealing with the squatter problem.

As an inspiration from the ARnet initiative and as part of its contribution to the Land Reform and Resettlement Programme in Zimbabwe, ZERO is planning to undertake a detailed data gathering process on informal settlements in partnership with ZIMRIGHTS. The study will be focusing on the following issues:

• Number of squatters in areas where instances of squatting had been reported, location of squatters (in areas of origin) by province and district, reasons for squatting.
• The history of squatters and how their evictions were handled.
• What were the costs for legal representation and who paid for these?
• The period it takes for a case to be cleared and what was the final decision in each case.
• Constraints faced in getting resources.
• Role of different stakeholders - Members of Parliament (MPs), councillors, chiefs etc.
• What was the community's contribution?

As part of the information collection exercise a number of interviews have been and more will be conducted with organisations working on informal settlements. Plans are also under way to interview some MPs whose constituencies have been affected by informal settlement issues.

For more information contact  info@zero.org.zw

Further information on the Popular Coalition be found on its website at: http://www.ifad.org/popularcoalition