Inventorying Intangible Cultural Heritage Assets Affected by Cyclone Idai in Chimanimani, Chipinge and Buhera districts in Zimbabwe

This proposed study is in response to the urgency grants highlight notice on impacts on cultural heritage resulting from natural disasters and climate change. In March 2019, devastating floods due to Cyclone Idai left Zimbabwe hard hit and devastated in terms of loss to human life and livestock as well as damage to property (UN Report, 2019). About 270,000 people were affected by Cyclone Idai, approximately 339 died, 15,230 displaced and about 349 are still missing to date. The Government of Zimbabwe and its development partners (international and local NGOs) have been on the forefront assisting the affected communities in Manicaland district with humanitarian aid and with relocating and reconstructing affected communities, especially in Chimanimani, Chipinge and Buhera districts. Hence, the urgent need to conduct this study so that it inputs into the post-Cyclone Idai recovery programme being championed by the Government of Zimbabwe and its development partners.

Climate change induced disasters, such as Cyclone Idai, pose a severe threat to cultural heritage. Cultural heritage plays an important role as a reflection of cultural, historical, and social values, is valuable to national and community identities, and it links to the past, and ongoing social cohesion. However, the adverse effects of climate change induced natural disasters on cultural heritage tend to be considered primarily in connection with tangible or physical cultural properties, such as buildings, monuments, or archeological sites, and less in connection with Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, indigenous rituals, kinship systems. For example, the two most pronounced Post-cyclone Idai recovery initiatives in the nine affected districts in Manicaland province; the Zimbabwe Idai Recovery Project (ZIRP) and the Post Cyclone Idai Emergency Recovery and Resilience Project (PCIREP), are mainly focused on livelihoods and infrastructure. ZIRP is focusing on rebuilding community infrastructure and restoring livelihoods through cash transfers, restoring agricultural crops and livestock production. The PCIREP programme is focusing on rebuilding key infrastructure across Zimbabwe, which include transport, electricity, and water and sanitation.

None of these programmes are targeted at recovering or restoring the ICH of the affected communities. Intangible heritage faces considerable risks through the scattering of communities such as what happened in the Cyclone Idai hit districts in Zimbabwe where 10,000 houses were destroyed and the families are being relocated to other districts. This type of damage often has a longer-lasting social impact e.g., affect cultural diversity and socio-cultural interactions as families are forced to change their community set up, ways of life, and to compete for resources.

There is urgent need to include ICH within the framework of disaster risk management being used in recovering and rebuilding Cyclone Idai affected communities in Manicaland province in Zimbabwe as cultural heritage is often damaged or destroyed in the aftermath of a disaster due to insensitive conservation, recovery, and reconstruction. Hence, this study is of urgency to provide evidence-based information on the intangible cultural heritage of these affected communities that is useful for sustainable resilience, reconstruction and relocation of the affected communities.