African countries continue to be prone to drought, caused mainly by unfavorable weather patterns and climatic variations which have an adverse impact on rural households and agricultural production. This literature review article accounted for the aforesaid drawbacks and attempted to assess the effect of drought on food insecurity in African countries. This article further sought to dissect the resilience and climate change adaptation strategies applied by African countries to mitigate the adverse effects of drought on food insecurity in rural livelihoods. The hermeneutic framework was adopted in this study, where the secondary data sources were searched from credible bibliographic and multidisciplinary databases and organizational websites. Thereafter, it was classified, mapped, and critically assessed using the qualitative data analysis software NVivo to generate patterns and themes. The NVivo program is a qualitative data analysis software package produced by QSR International and which helps qualitative researchers to organize, analyze, and find insights in qualitative data; for example, in journal articles where multilayered analysis on small or large volumes of data are required. This article has the potential to contribute in theory, concept, policy, and practice regarding best practices, resilience, and climate change adaptation strategies that can be harnessed by rural people. Furthermore, this article has the potential to shed light on the role played by traditional leadership and policy improvements in ensuring there is sufficient food during periods of drought.

Recent surveys have shown that the global urban population is increasing at an accelerated rate. As a result, the associated increased demand for food items has pushed up the overall cost of living for urban dwellers. To mitigate this increased cost of living urban dwellers increasingly find solace in agricultural activities. This surge in urban agricultural activities comes at a time characterized by long term shifts in temperatures, rainfall patterns and general weather conditions. While many researchers have presented evidence of increased urban agricultural activities, there remains a paucity of integrated literature that summarizes climate change issues on urban agriculture. This research reviewed literature on the influence of climate change on urban agricultural operations in sub-Saharan African cities. A narrative review approach was employed to summarize and synthesize findings and make recommendations for future research. The review employed the key terms ‘urban farming’, ‘urban agriculture’, ‘climate change’, ‘peri-urban agriculture’, and ‘urban agricultural production’ to search relevant literature indexed in databases: Scopus, Directory of Open Access Journals, Web of Science, Google Scholar and Academic Search (EBSCO). The choice of these keywords was informed by the authors’ specialist understanding of urban agriculture and climate change. There is consensus among the reviewed literature that climate change affects urban agriculture from production to processing, storage, and distribution. This study also established that the extent and magnitude of climate change impacts differ from one region to another. Therefore, adaptation and mitigation strategies ought to be context specific and not universally applicable. This is important because Africa is a climatologically diverse continent so that the impact of climate change faced by one sub-Saharan African city may be different from that for other cities in other regions. A framework that simplifies the effects of climate change on urban agriculture-dependent households in sub-Saharan Africa was produced. More specifically, this framework is recommended to those urban farmers and policymakers that are involved in mitigating the consequences of climate change as well as achieving food and nutritional security. The authors also recommend this framework for unpacking the knowledge of the influence of climate change on urban agriculture as well as exposing directions for future research. This work adds to the growing body of knowledge in the domain of climate change on urban agriculture-dependent households.

The COVID-19 pandemic took a devastating human and economic toll on the entire globe. Although Africa had fewer number of cases compared to all other continents, the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on food supply chains was devastating, yet the pathways through which it affected the continent remain poorly documented and understood. With this background in mind, this study explored the ways in which food supply chains were disrupted by COVID-19 in Zimbabwe. The study used a qualitative methodology and a descriptive survey with 32 participants from food supply chain networks. The results reveal that due to COVID-19 restrictions, food supply chains were disrupted right from the production stage, transportation stage up to access markets. More specifically, COVID-19 restrictions negatively affected production and supply of food items. Secondly, transportation of food supplies was adversely affected as haulage companies as well as local suppliers and importers had challenges getting lockdown exemption letters. Thirdly, COVID-19 restrictions increased the demand for food stuffs as consumers stockpiled to ensure their food security. Lastly, COVID-19 pandemic increased food prices as consumer expenditure on food items increased. This study contributes to the body of knowledge since, to the best knowledge of the authors, it is the first study to identify and address the consequences of COVID-19 pandemic on food supply chains in Zimbabwe. This study is also significant to policy makers and practitioners in the optimization of food supply chains in possible subsequent waves and future pandemics.

Purpose: The study sought to determine the possibility of supplier development in the form of contract farming as a determinant of supply chain resilience in fast-food outlets. This is against the background of the restaurant having been designated as one of the industries that remained operational when the other industries were affected by the two-decade-long economic meltdown and more recently COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected using questionnaires from the consenting restaurants with the most senior procurement personnel in target restaurants as the informants and analysed using analysis of moment structures (AMOS) software.Findings: The results revealed that indeed supplier development in the form of contract farming leads to supply chain resilience as indicated by improved supply chain visibility, supply chain flexibility, and supply chain redundancy. Fast-food restaurant businesses that have not yet adopted supplier development in the form of contract farming are therefore encouraged to adopt it as a way of enhancing their resilience to traditional supply chain disruptions such as transport shortages, droughts, and more recently COVID-19 pandemic.Originality/value: It is to the best knowledge of these researchers, that no studies have attempted to analyse the three drivers of supply chain resilience, namely supply chain redundancy, supply chain flexibility, and supply chain visibility in a single study and link them to a single antecedent.

Purpose: There has been an avalanche of global natural disasters in recent times. In recent years approximately 210 million people were affected, an estimated economic cost of US$153bn was incurred and 68,000 deaths were recorded. This was a work up call that made it imperative for humanitarian actors to impetuously adopt information and communication technologies (ICTs) to timeously assist affected populations in disaster prevention, mitigation response and recovery However, the use of ICTs in the humanitarian field is still at its infancy in most third world countries. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to evaluate the utilization of ICTs in humanitarian relief operations associated with Cyclone Idai in Zimbabwe. Design/methodology/approach: Using a pragmatic approach, the study gathered data using semistructured questionnaires that were triangulated with interviews of humanitarian staff that were involved in Cyclone Idai relief efforts. Findings: An observed suboptimal utilization of ICTs was further disadvantaged by the inequitable distribution of communication infrastructure. However, despite the suboptimal usage, there was a significant positive influence of ICT adoption on effectiveness, efficiency and flexibility in humanitarian relief operations. Originality/value: Optimal use of ICTs has the potential to revolutionize humanitarian supply chain management. A smooth transition to new technologies is recommended in which personnel are given professional development opportunities on a regular basis.

Supplier development in the farming industry takes the form of contract farming. Contract farming was introduced to tobacco farming in 2004. Prior to that contract farming has been thriving in other crops such as cotton and sugarcane. Previous studies on tobacco farming had an unbalanced focus on the social aspects of contract farming thereby largely neglecting the economic benefits of the same phenomenon. This study therefore seeks to determine how supplier development in the form of contract farming impact on supplier performances. A survey of 20 tobacco firms who had to rate 400 farmers was conducted, and the findings indicated that contract farming leads to improved cost performance and quality performance. However, the study recorded no statistically significant effects of contract farming on delivery performance. It was therefore recommended that contract farming structures must be strengthened in order to reap on the achieved benefits in terms of improved cost performance and quality performance.