Rural development is the key to Africa's development! A thread...
Urban areas are human settlements with high population density and high settlement/building density. Whatever is not urban is considered rural.
Rural areas have low population density and low settlement density. They are located outside Urban areas
Zimbabwe's urban areas are overpopulated. This means that the number of people living in our urban areas exceed the carrying capacity of those environments.
Interesting though, is the fact that, overpopulated as urban areas may be, the majority of Zimbabweans are found in the rural areas. Despite that, our rural areas are underpopulated.
What this means is that there is a surplus of people in the urban areas where there's a deficit of resources to sustain those people.
In the rural areas there is a surplus of resources and a "deficit" of people. Why is that so...those with the potential and capacity to develop are lured by the development in urban areas.
Urban areas were not always urban, they are rural areas that went through what we call urbanisation. When whites settled in Zimbabwe, they developed the areas they fancied, turning them into urban areas, using local people from the rural areas as labour.
This is when our rural-urban migration began. Urban areas became sources of employment for rural folk. Even after independence, because jobs were found mostly in urban areas, the migration continued. Everyone who reached a certain age and certain level of education moved to town
Urban areas unfortunately, have reached their carrying capacity and are now bursting at the seems. Unemployment and overpopulation are now the main characteristics of Zimbabwe's urban areas.
We need to reprogram!
It is a no brainer then that people need to go back to the rural area. But people, unlike cattle, cannot be herded back; or simply chased out of town; or cruelly bundled in trucks and resettled elsewhere like our colonisers did to us when they stole our land. No.
People, in their nature of servitude to self, need to see that it is beneficial to them, to migrate back to the rural areas. If something lured them to the urban areas the same thing, or the promise of something better, will surely lure them back to the rural area.
How? You ask...Rural development. This is by definition, the process of improving the quality of life and economic well being of people living in rural areas. I can already here you thinking that's the role of the government!! Well you're right, but only partly!
National development is the collective responsibility of everyone living in a country. Rural development is the key to our national development, fundamental not only because the majority of our nationals are rural based; but also because our urban areas are full.
Who develops a nation: everyone! Who spearheads the development: Government and business. Government needs to lure business people to the rural areas. Gvt must creates policies that make it beneficial for big labour intensive businesses to be based in the rural areas
God! I'm so sleepy I can't concentrate anymore but I'm sure you catch my drift...If you all add your 2 cents who knows how much we'll have in the morning 😘😘
*seams
