While the devastating cyclones Dineo (2017) and Idai (2019) may feel like distant memories on the global stage, their impact remains etched into daily life in Zimbabwe’s Tsholotsho and Chimanimani districts. A punishing regional drought in 2024 makes the picture here even clearer: food, land, and water systems have been reshaped in ways that directly influence social cohesion and stability.

Southern Africa has faced repeated climate shocks in recent years. In places like Tsholotsho, displacement after cyclones collided with drought and economic stress. This convergence increased the risk that small disagreements at water points or grazing areas might create wider social tensions.

Without a closer look, it is difficult to understand how communities in the southwestern parts of Zimbabwe (specifically Tsholotsho’s wards 5, 6, 8, and 10) are adapting to these crises—as well as climate change in general. That is why a research team from the CGIAR Climate Security Southern Africa Hub spent two weeks in Tsholotsho in late November and early December 2024.

Team members walked through transects with local community members, leaders and agricultural extension workers and interviewed displaced residents and their host communities. They also spent time with the San community, an ethnic minority group in wards 8 and 10, and their neighboring communities, tracing the dynamics around their co-existence in a climate crisis and their daily journeys through the long routes necessary to obtain the water and firewood that define survival in a fragile landscape.

The research team obtained significant new perspectives by living under the same conditions as the people they studied. Living without electricity, with poor connectivity, and often improvising basic comforts, the team found that resource access is more than a question of scarcity. It is a daily negotiation shaped by structural inequities, gender, ethnicity, displacement, and local governance. It is also a struggle that holds lessons for how climate, peace, and security intersect across Southern Africa.

Photo Credit: Thea Synnestvedt., Full view of the homestead with house built by the Government of Zimbabwe and its partners for displaced populations in Tsholotsho

Climate Stress at the Water’s Edge

One particular part of this challenging landscape stood out. Gariya Dam in Ward 8 represents both a lifeline and a pressure point for the San community and its counterparts.

During the field visit, drought‑strained supplies caused intensified tensions here. Communities struggled over scarce water resources, and conflicting interests between watering livestock and fishing emerged. One evening, that tension escalated into actual violent confrontation between a Kalanga man and a San man that left one of them seriously injured and in need of urgent care.

The incident also underscores a broader reality. When rainfall fails and buffers are thin, competition over access points can become volatile. Investments in water governance and conflict‑sensitive resource management are not side issues. Rather, they are central to climate adaptation and local stability.

The Tsholotsho field visit also offered broader lessons about the vexed interaction between climate and social tensions in the region.

The first is that climate adaptation cannot be separated from mediation at the water’s edge. Water points are both lifelines and flashpoints, and without locally legitimate rules, disputes can spiral quickly. Strengthening committees that bring together customary leaders, displaced households, and minority groups (including the San) is one way to turn shared access into a foundation for cooperation, rather than conflict/competition.

The second lesson is that early warning and drought management must be matched with last-mile delivery. A community may know when water is running out or when livestock are at risk, but if clinics lack basic supplies or transport, small disputes can escalate into medical emergencies and deepen mistrust. Investing in local transport links, stocking rural clinics, and ensuring that alerts translate into rapid action can prevent grievances from hardening into wider insecurity.

Why This Matters Now

Field research, such as the project undertaken in Tsholotsho, can be a raw and unpredictable exercise. It demands that researchers move beyond their customary academic frameworks to share in the rhythms of daily life in the communities they study.

Fieldwork that respects local rhythms and builds trust can help surface easily overlooked pressure points (such as the Dam mentioned earlier). Such insights allow stakeholders to craft policies that bring water governance, livelihoods support, and basic services together to reduce risks.

From a research and practice perspective, the logistics of field research matters as much as the design of the research or program. It is a space in which gender dynamics, privacy, and fatigue are not peripheral concerns; they shape whether diverse teams can work effectively and whether women and young researchers are able to participate fully. Planning for gender-sensitive housing, childcare support, and safe transport is therefore not a luxury; it is an essential part of building credible, resilient teams and programs.

And the success of fieldwork heavily lies in community acceptance and trust. To demonstrate this, we share a personal recollection of our journey in Tsholotsho. After our arrival in Tsholotsho, community members welcomed us politely, yet they remained closed off; we could sense walls of resistance. Our breakthrough came via the most unexpected turn of events: a literal mud bath.

Photo Credit: Thea Synnestvedt. CGIAR Climate Security Team members and community members pushing car out of the mud in Tsholotsho, Zimbabwe

During a transect walk, a deceptively small puddle held our team hostage by stopping our 4×4 vehicle in place. What followed was an intense and messy joint struggle to push it free. The researchers and villagers worked together, barefoot, deep in thick clay, slipping, laughing and bonding. Being drenched together was a literal mud bath that proved to be our initiation into the community. It was the moment that community welcomed us and invited our team in.

Sometimes, before the real conversations begin, you need to earn trust in unexpected ways. That muddy afternoon became the joke of the week, a shared memory that cemented a sense of unity. It is immersion, rather than observation alone, that ultimately brings the complex dynamics of climate, peace, and security into clearer view.