Caroline Miti

This paper asks whether value chain integration increases smallholder resilience during shocks. Using a qualitative research study design and the test case of the ‘sugar-belt’ in Zambia, the paper draws on interviews with participants from different stakeholder groups, including household case studies and group discussions. Results show sugarcane value chain integration enhances smallholder livelihood resilience during pandemics through its coordination arrangement, but more could be done. Indirect involvement in, and joint procurement processes of inputs between smallholders and the management company, existing ready and stable access to markets and access to Fairtrade relief funds that point to direct livelihood support proved crucial for strengthening smallholder livelihood resilience during the pandemic. There were COVID-19-related adjustments by the management company, which further increased smallholder support. However, in as much as coordination arrangements seemed to have worked well during COVID-19, smallholder livelihoods remained narrow and risky, raising the need for diversification that could strengthen sustainable resilience. This paper sheds light on how value chains could be organised to enhance pandemic recovery and build livelihood resilience. It helps us to reflect on the ‘(in)effectiveness’ of value chain institutions and the role and importance of smallholder coordination arrangements during pandemics. Ultimately, the result is a contribution to livelihood resilience thinking in value chains—one we hope is appropriate to our conjuncture.

This paper uses the case of Zambia to advance a new understanding of the rural–rural mobility dynamics in the context of climate change. Focusing on trends, determinants and underpinning conditions of rural–rural migration, analysis draws on documentary analyses of climate change policy and legal frameworks alongside interviews with state and non-state actors. Findings indicate a growing recognition that Zambia has increasingly been experiencing extreme climatic events, particularily droughts, which frequently induce migration from the southern region to wetter and fertile agricultural central regions. The study shows the centrality of facilitating factors such as language and social networks in driving migration. While state actors show a concern that migration may cause environmental degradation and increase land tensions in the destination communities, rural–rural migration is not a central feature of climate‑adaptation strategies. Ultimately, the paper critiques push–pull frameworks that attempt to explain climate-induced migration, and instead advances an approach that places social-cultural perspectives at the center of migration dynamics.