DOI: 10.36347/sjebm.2017.v04i08.005

Pages: 493-503

This paper evaluates rural poverty alleviation strategies that have been implemented by the government of Zimbabwe since independence in 1980 such as the establishment of cooperatives, growth points, infrastructural development through the District Development Fund, CAMPFIRE programmes, Community Share Ownership Trusts and resettlement programmes among others. This paper is a desk review of the various rural development strategies that have been implemented. The paper establishes that on the whole these development strategies have not been very effective in alleviating poverty in rural areas owing to a myriad of challenges, such as economic decline, lack of ownership of development policies by rural communities owing to top down approaches to development planning by government. The paper recommends that there is a need to interrogate the reasons for the failure of the rural poverty alleviation strategies, capacity building of rural district councils, and employing participatory approaches to rural development planning and practice, in order to ensure the sustainability of rural development programmes.