The majority of Zimbabwe's population (70%) resides in harsh subsistence economic conditions in the communal rural areas. Their main preoccupation is basic survival and their efforts are concentrated at producing food for consumption. All the determinant factors: access to land, water, credit and energy are largely absent, yet they are critical for one to meet the basic needs of survival. In the immediate post-independence period, the government assumed wrongly that its local government institutions would deliver development to the rural areas, but due to a lack of strategic planning and foresight, development has not taken place. The task to cater for the welfare of the rural poor was thus shifted to the Non-Governmental Organisations. The government's neglect of the rural poor can be attributed to its failure to perceive poverty as a national problem as evidenced by the absence of poverty eradication strategies in the national development plans.
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