Case Study: Ruwa, Zimbabwe

A case study of a rural area showing some of the issues of its development and growth (or decline) and
evaluating the responses.

Please locate Ruwa on a map and insert here.

Ruwa is a growth point situated 22km south-east of Harare along the main Harare-Mutare highway
in Zimbabwe. The Ruwa area illustrates some of the changes occurring in rural areas in many parts of
the world. In the past, rural society was perceived to be distinctly different from urban society.
Recently, however, there has been rapid rural change in HICs as well as in parts of LICs.

Ruwa as an area illustrates this: the small centre had a service station, a post office and a
supermarket and it originally came under the Bromley-Ruwa Rural District Council. The fairly low-
order services of the village were accessed by residents from nearby farms, smallholdings and
isolated dwellings scattered around a large hinterland which stretched in all directions, back towards
Mabvuku and Harare in the west, towards Goromonzi further north-east, and into commercial
farmland south of the village centre.

In 1986 Ruwa was designated as a growth point, and as such, it ultimately became part of the
Greater Harare Metropolitan area and now forms one side of the rural-urban fringe with Harare.

Economies in rural areas are no longer dominated by farming in many areas and Ruwa illustrates this
– the small settlement that served as an administrative and trading centre for the surrounding mixed
farming area was transformed by its designation as a growth point because industry and housing
developments mushroomed in the late 1980s and 1990s. The government introduced tax incentives
so that industries would locate there, so many new factories were built for manufacturing. The aim
was to curtail rapid rural-urban migration by offering employment in these new factories and
businesses close to the rural area of origin. A big new TM Supermarket located itself on the main
road just before Ruwa town itself. Zimre Park, which is a housing development, sprung up nearby.
An industrial park was built on the main road opposite the service station.

The farming situation is complex e.g. when the Zimbabwean government introduced its fast-track
land reform programme in 2000 some of the farms in the Ruwa area and in the rural-urban fringe
with Harare were designated for urban development and expansion, for example, Ventersburg Farm,
14km along the Mutare Rd, before Ruwa town, and opposite the Mabvuku high density suburb. At
first the government lacked funds to build houses on the farm, so it was leased to a farmer who was
raising cattle there so it went back to its original rural land use but not with the original owner. As of
2017 however, the government has re-taken it to develop it for housing in the rural-urban fringe.

These economic changes have fuelled social change in the countryside:

• workers in the new businesses tended to live in townships nearby and their numbers grew through
natural increase and by stepped migration from other smaller centres such as Bromley, Goromonzi
and Melfort. Epworth, Tafara and Mabvuku have grown so much.
• In-migration was experienced as more and more city-dwellers began to buy houses in the new
developments in Ruwa, or to buy up properties within a 10km radius either as investment or
retirement properties (as previously mentioned, the hinterland for this village centre stretches for a
long way in all directions around it).
With about 10 primary schools, several secondary schools, 22 churches, thousands of residential
stands in varying degrees of development, numerous industrial sites, a rehabilitation centre and
several clinics, one would think this was a town in the throes of an economic boom. However, this is
far from the case. The original village site still houses a supermarket, service station and post office,
with the addition of a hardware and a takeaway outlet. Many services are still lacking e.g. banking
halls to facilitate commercial activities and support local businesses. The sewage system was not
developed at the same rate as the residential areas grew and this needs urgent attention.

The economic downturn along with the chaotic land reform process in Zimbabwe has meant that
many farms and businesses have closed, and the informal sector has mushroomed as retrenched
workers find another way to make a living, e.g. tyre repairs, air time vendors, selling river sand
illegally dredged from nearby streams, even unregistered nursery schools and crèches.

The farming sector does continue to contribute to the economy of the area with horticultural and
dairy farming still continuing e.g. Keymer Dairy farm.

Thus it can be seen that defining Ruwa as either a rural area or an urban one is difficult as it has
characteristics of both.
It is a good example of how a rural area can change considerably due to
• Rural-urban migration
• Urban-rural migration
• The consequences of urban growth
• Rural and urban planning policies
• The balance of government funding between rural and urban areas.
Some info from https://zimbabwesolarwater.wordpress.com/ruwa/

Question 11 O/N 2009

(a) Describe the location and character of one named rural settlement or rural area which you have
studied in detail. [7]
(b) Explain one or more of the issues in the development of the rural settlement or rural area you
chose in (a) and describe the effects. [8]
(c) How far do you agree that the differences between rural settlements and urban settlements are
becoming less clear? [10]