Godwell Nhamo

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Chief Researcher & Exxaro Chair in Climate & Sustainability Transitions at University of South Africa

Coping with chronically variable yields of food crops is critical for the survival of farm households in marginal environments where agro-climatic conditions are challenging. As such, to alleviate the effects of climate change, rural households implement various strategies, including community nutrition gardening, to tackle livelihood-related chall...

The measures instituted by national governments to abate the proliferation of COVID-19 had immediate and dramatic ramifications on most sectors and socio-economic players of the society, including the civil society organizations (CSOs). In view of the important role played by CSOs in assisting national governments to address social and economic vic...

The global impact of COVID-19 affected organisations and workers in all sectors, fundamentally altering daily life and work routines. However, there has been relatively little examination of how these implications vary across different management levels and job categories. This study investigated the impact of the COVID-19 on municipal employees in...

This study investigated the sustainability aspects of implementing a small-scale biogas digester project at the EARTH Centre, a horse-riding facility for the disabled, in South Africa. Firstly, an energy audit of the facility was conducted. From this exercise, energy-saving opportunities through anaerobic digestion of horse manure were identified....

The coastal and marine landscape within national and international space is of significance for human systems, sustainable (economic) development, global changes, and pollution prevention. South Africa occupies a geostrategic position due to its vast maritime trade, extensive and well-endowed coastline, being a continental shelf, having territorial...

The International Conference on Climate Resilient, Smart and Sustainable Futures (ICCRSF 2025) is organised by the Vaal University of Technology’s Faculty of Human Sciences through a partnership with the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF), Great Zimbabwe University, the University of South Africa, Fort Hare University, Cape Peninsul...

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Africa’s schools will educate the majority of the 21st century’s working population, influencing the global economy. Through combined spatial analysis techniques on over 500,000 schools, we estimate a 2 billion EUR cost to power unelectrified schools with decentralized solar photovoltaic systems. Given the positive effect on children’s food securit...

Climate change poses significant challenges to rural communities in Southern Africa, where agriculture forms the backbone of livelihoods and socioeconomic stability. This introductory chapter sets the context for the succeeding chapters to explore the multifaceted dimensions of climate change resilience in this region, highlighting the vulnerabilit...

This chapter synthesizes key findings and policy recommendations derived from 16 chapters from the book focusing on diverse aspects of climate resilience in rural Southern Africa. The chapters underscore the persistent reality of climate change driven by unabated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which poses catastrophic challenges for rural Southern...

The year 2024 marked nine of the 15-year timeline towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Consequently, questions arise regarding the progress made. Based on a survey (n=290), key informant interviews (n=31), and archival sources, this paper explored the role and perspectives of academic staff in localising the SDGs within Zimba...

Purpose University students’ awareness, knowledge and attitude towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) contribute to their implementation and localisation. Understanding students’ perspectives in open and distance e-Learning institutions (ODELs) is crucial. This study aims to examine variations in students’ SDG knowledge and awareness acro...

Climate change is mostly perceived by smallholder farmers in terms of changes in weather elements such as rainfall and temperature. These changes are typically observed over time in an immediate environment. Studies have largely focused on examining smallholder farmers’ perceptions of climate change, with little attention paid to comparisons betwee...

Popular tourism destinations are not insulated from climate change variability and vulnerability. Conversely, these destinations also contribute to climate change. Although several studies have investigated the climate change-tourism nexus, there remains limited knowledge regarding tourist perceptions of climate change on popular African destinatio...

The study analyses the perceptions of the teaching staff and the student population regarding the localisation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within the Zimbabwe Ezekiel Guti University (ZEGU), a private university in Zimbabwe. A mixed methods approach utilising two online surveys for academics (n = 35) and students (n = 173), in-depth...

One of the key issues embedded in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is the need for disaggregated data. Given the nature of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), studies on such should respond to this call. This paper investigates gendered and other perspectives on COVID-19 vaccination status in South Africa's Limpopo Province. The wor...

In May 2023, the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 was no longer a public health emergency of international concern. However, this declaration does not remove severe negative impacts COVID-19 had on the education sector. This paper sets an objective to determine the impact of COVID-19 and the responses thereto in school operations in...

The 2017 Global Risk Report ranked water crisis third among the top six global risks that greatly impact society. While the water crisis is disproportionately distributed worldwide, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has more people (most of whom are women) who face water problems compared to other regions worldwide. Through the application of the Preferred...

Purpose This study aims to examine academic staff’s engagement with sustainable development goals (SDGs) in higher education institutions. Design/methodology/approach The triangulation, convergence model of the mixed methods research design was adopted as the strategy for inquiry. A total of 56 questionnaires and 25 interviews were used to collect...

Globally, there is an unequivocal call to promote good governance at all levels of government through the promotion and development of transparent, effective and accountable institutions. These perspectives remain to be investigated concerning COVID-19 governance at provincial level in South Africa, where provinces play a ‘midwife’ role between nat...

As this article was being finalised, the world was left with less than 7 of the 15 years of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) implementation to 2030. There were still huge gaps in the attainment of the SDGs in institutions of higher learning globally, especially that COVID-19 brought a barrier leading to a known pushback. However, the pandemic d...

This study investigates the impact, recovery and resilience of COVID-19 on South Africa's Limpopo Province's tourism industry. The study utilises surveys (n = 115) and interviews (n = 50) to examine the impact, recovery, resilience, success and challenges of various tourism-related businesses, including national parks, restaurants, and hotels. Desp...

Climate change poses significant risks on coastal national park-based tourism through its effect on accessibility, comfort levels, and spatiotemporal changes of attractions. Wildfires and extreme temperatures have become issues of concern. Due to the widespread occurrence of fires in national parks along coastal areas and the noticeable changes in...

The emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) have significant influence on the global economic and environmental trajectories. They have carbon intensive economic systems, which contribute significantly to total global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, leading to climate change. However, BRICS have joined the race t...

This study investigates the effects of climate change on energy security in Africa, specifically focusing on the Upper and Lower Zambezi Basin. Data from the Kariba River basin sub-catchments, annual reports, the Climate Data Store, and Teal Tool Earth's country-by-country climate data were analysed through quantitative and qualitative data analysi...

Hailstorm research in tourism remains scant despite growing evidence of increasing hailstorms and associated damages to destinations and attractions due to climate change. This study examined hailstorm occurrence, damage and loss, preparedness and adaptation, recovery and resilience resilience-building at the Sun City Resort in South Africa. Data w...

Climate-related extreme flooding at airports is commonly associated with sea level rise. However, more and more airport floods occur on these tourism assets, even inland. On November 9 2016, the Oliver Reginald (OR) Tambo International Airport experienced one of its worst floods, and the impact of this event deserves comprehensive documentation. A...

Due to climate change’s effects, protected areas, particularly national parks, face conservation challenges, negatively impacting tourism. Sustainable tourism requires understanding the climate and conservation challenges in national parks and their implications for tourism. Marakele National Park in South Africa faces climatic and conservation cha...

Sub-catchment level water sector response strategies to climate change in Zimbabwe have not been adequately analyzed to determine their impact and connectedness with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this study, the mixed methods research design is used to examine the implications of water sector climate change response strategies (CCRS)...

Smallholder agriculture in Northwestern Ghana continues to suffer the increasing threats of climate change and variability. The extant literature has argued that climate-smart agriculture is the way forward for smallholder farmers to reduce the threats of climate change and variability in agriculture production. However, smallholder farmers continu...

There is consensus that the risk of flooding is increasing in many parts of Africa and globally due to climate variability and change-induced extreme weather events. Floods are often considered a necessity by the conservation community in semi-arid regions since they recharge important aquifers and wetlands, which are critical areas for biodiversit...

Globally, national parks contribute to tourism and conservation. Several iconic national parks in Africa attract millions of tourists. These include Table Mountain, Kruger, the Serengeti, Chobe, Hwange, and Gorongosa National Park. Tourism contributes substantially to global warming and climate change through carbon emissions from tourism activitie...

Informing Africa's tourism sector responses to the IPCC-AR6's projected climate change impacts remains paramount. This study reviews the evolution of knowledge on climate change and tourism in Africa, examining gaps, scholarship trends and policy issues since the IPCC-AR5 in 2014. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analys...

Offers an in-depth analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on tourism and prospects for recovery Provides case studies from the developing world, including some of the areas hardest hit by COVID Examines varied pandemic impacts and differing paths to recovery

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic presented a global challenge to the tourism and hospitality industry, particularly the restaurant sector. While the impact of the coronavirus on tourism and hospitality is still unravelling, there has not been empirical documentation to assess the early recovery of the restaurant sector from the pandemic. Such...

COVID-19 reshaped the tourism industry in many ways never thought of before. It created many threats and opportunities, and the recovery has not been a smooth sail. Rather, the recovery is fraught with challenges that the sector should navigate to emerge better and more resilient. This chapter summarises some emerging tourism trends triggered by th...

This chapter sets the scene for the entire book. It presents summaries of the implications and impacts of COVID-19 on tourism destinations, the recovery of tourism’s significant sectors, prospects for the future of tourism post-COVID-19 and methodologies applied in this book and the chapter outlines. It emerges that governments’ restrictions and re...

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been felt worldwide by all sectors of the economy, and the sporting arena is no exception. The pandemic led to a complete and historical global shutdown of sporting events and sports tourism by default. As a critical international sport, football was one of the most impacted. This chapter assesses the preli...

New financing in clean energy technologies plays a progressively important role in increasing energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This research investigates the salient social dimensions of clean electricity access with the view to identify the most suitable SSA countries for funding and implementing decentralised renewable energy systems an...

Soil erosion has become a common feature in certain national parks across the global biomes, and national parks in the Savanna biome of South Africa have not been spared. Given their prominence in hosting large land mammals that contribute significantly to the tourism sector, the vulnerability of the parks to soil erosion merits attention. This stu...

In this article we present datasets used for the construction of a composite indicator, the Social Clean Energy Access (Social CEA) Index, presented in detail in [1]. This article consists of comprehensive social development data related to electricity access, collected from several sources, and processed according to the methodology described in [...

Vaccine diplomacy is a subject of medical diplomacy that has been used for some time. Recently, it has been widely used to address the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). As global health challenges, particularly pandemics, bite, many countries with the necessary capacity leverage their advancement in developed vaccines to gain diplomatic mileage....

Numerous pandemics have ravaged the world since prehistoric times. Some of the prevalent pandemics include the flu pandemic (1889–1890), Spanish flu (1918–1920), AIDS (1981–present) and the H1N1 swine flu pandemic (2009–2010). As pandemics occur, their incidence and prevalence rates are spatially heterogeneous, and the spatial distributions change...

Despite the progress made to attain the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2: zero hunger in other regions of the world, the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation notes that Asia and Africa are still lagging in this regard. The advent of COVID-19 is exacerbating the situation. This study examines how the impact of natural disasters compounded by CO...

The advent and rapid spread of the coronavirus resulted in the need and demand for timely and reliable information about the contagion. The absence of such information led to a massive COVID-19 infodemic paddled on different forms of media. Myths, conspiracies, rumours and misinformation about the disease rapidly spread across the globe causing pan...

Assessment of the Risks to Tourism Destinations, Tourists, and Employees as a Result of Climate Change Extreme and slow-onset climate events attributed to climate change have been apparent in recent decades, with socioeconomic and environmental implications for global populations. Extreme weather events and shifts in geographical and climatic zones...

The emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) have significant influence on the global economic and environmental trajectories. They have carbon intensive economic systems, which contribute significantly to total global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, leading to climate change. However, BRICS have joined the race t...

Climate change and variability are among the most critical threats facing heritage sites across the world. However, despite the threats posed by climate change and variability on heritage tourism sites, there are limited research and management interventions to help build the resilience of threatened sites. South African national parks are home to...

The alignment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with national development agendas has gained traction since the ratification of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in September 2015. This article investigates how South Africa has aligned the climate action SDG (SDG 13) with its national development agenda, with an emphasis on adap...

Th e cruise ship industry was one of the fastest growing subsectors of the tourism industry before the advent of COVID-19. Th is paper examines the prospects and recovery of the cruise ship industry from the devastating impacts of COVID-19 on the industry. Th e study relied mostly on event study and secondary data, including survey data from author...

Climate change and variability are among the most critical threats facing heritage sites across the world. However, despite the threats posed by climate change and variability on heritage tourism sites, there are limited research and management interventions to help build the resilience of threatened sites. South African national parks are home to...

This paper documents the processes leading to the hosting of the University of South Africa (Unisa) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Localisation Indaba1 in November 2019. Of interest is how the programming, which started as a purely inreach community engagement project, ultimately embraced the whole institution, all SDGs and the South African...

There is increasing concern over the sustainability of the tourism industry, which is blamed for contributing to several environmental challenges, including carbon emissions that lead to global warming and ultimately climate change. The industry is further blamed for causing ocean plastic pollution and associated negative impacts on the marine envi...

There has been a notable increase in the frequency and impacts of tropical cyclones hitting Zimbabwe. In particular, the southeastern parts of the country are more vulnerable to tropical cyclones. The high winds and excessive rainfall that accompany tropical cyclones as well as the resulting floods have had significant impacts on commercial agricul...

Lately, significant attention has been given to the impact of extreme weather events. However, there is limited documentation on how extreme weather events such as tropical cyclones are impacting tourism and heritage resources in the Global South. This study responds to this knowledge gap by focusing on documenting the impact of tropical cyclone Id...

The socioeconomic and environmental costs of tropical cyclones (also known as hurricanes or typhoons) have drastically increased over the past 20 years. Countries in the global south are disproportionately bearing the burden of these increasing costs due to their vulnerability and limited ability to adapt and build resilience. This chapter provides...

The economic, social and environmental damage from tropical cyclones has been increasing in recent decades. Southern Africa is one of the regions vulnerable to tropical cyclones, and there are concerns that their destructive impacts are infringing the developmental aspirations of this region, in particular, the achievement of the sustainable develo...

This study used a mixed-methods research design to examine the sensitivity of vector-borne disease (VBD) patterns to the changes in rainfall and temperature trends. The research focused on malaria in Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe. The study interfaced the climate action, health and sustainable cities and communities with sustainable development goals...

This book, therefore, aims to document research focussing on the just and sustainability transitions discourse in order to build back and forward a better world. The scholarly book will be informed by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 intertwined sustainable development goals (SDGs) framework, with the view to leave no one behi...

COVID-19 and tourism destinations: Impacts and prospects for recovery Call for Book Chapters (Springer Nature) Aim of the book This edited book aims to document research focussing on the impact of COVID-19 on tourism destinations around the world. The book is a follow-up to an earlier and extremely successful 2020 publication entitled ‘Counting t...

Understanding the livelihood trends and factors that influence adaptation among rural farmers is critical for promoting community resilience toward climate change. This chapter explores the livelihood trends and factors influencing adaptation among small-scale subsistence farmers in the Middle Zambezi Biosphere Reserve (MZBR), Zimbabwe. A mobile ho...

Climate-induced hazards, including floods and tornadoes, are ravaging communities the world over. Floods and tornadoes have immensely contributed to the disasters, which have costed lives and imposed a strain on financial resources for several economies, including those regarded as economically developed. It is fear-provoking to observe that the fr...

The so-called drying Victoria Falls received considerable global media attention from October to December 2019. The debate surrounding the falls have split stakeholders, with strong pushback from the tourism sector. This paper taps into the arguments presented in the debate as well as into two earlier academic publications that used 40 years of dat...

There has been considerable academic documentation on the manner in which the world mobilised resources to rescue animals from the floodwaters after the closure of Kariba Dam, shared between Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) and Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia) in 1958. Similarly, there are several publications that critique the manner in which both...

Natural hazard-related disasters have been progressively increasing across the globe over the last several decades. Notably, the frequency of floods and tornadoes has accelerated leading to the proliferation of related calamities over time. Although some significant amount of work has been done to understand flood risks on communities around the wo...

Hotel management is becoming more difficult in the face of increasing and repeated natural and human-induced disasters, particularly floods, cyclones and earthquakes. Hotel managers should come up with disaster risk reduction (DRR) and management plans that include early warning, search and rescue (evacuations) and relief and recovery. While there...

The Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa experienced severe floods in April 2019 and the negative impacts were significant. This chapter seeks to determine information communication and technology (ICT) readiness for flood risk reduction and management at the local municipality of Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape Province. The chapter fu...

This chapter presents an assessment of the effectiveness of the tropical cyclone early warning system (EWS) in Zimbabwe, with a special focus on Cyclone Idai, which affected the country in March 2019. The study used a household questionnaire survey, interviews, field observations and official documents to identify gaps in major components of the EW...

Tropical cyclones are a global challenge, and climate change is adding to the complexity of their impact on development and occurrence, particularly in developing countries. While there is a marked improvement in the forecasting of track and intensity of tropical cyclones across the world, such improvements have not translated into improved disaste...

Tropical Cyclone Idai ripped through Malawi, Madagascar, Mozambique and Zimbabwe in mid-March 2019. Hundreds of lives were lost and a lot more remain unaccounted for. This study investigates the extent to which Zimbabwe’s information and communication technology (ICT) is ready for disaster risk reduction (DRR) application and management. The focus...

Climate change is known to result in extreme weather events across the world. Concern has been increasing over the social, environmental and human costs of such extreme weather events. 2019 witnessed some of the most significant record cyclones in southern Africa due to the occurrence of two devastating cyclones, namely tropical cyclones Idai and K...

The adoption of the 17 ambitious global sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the 169 targets in September 2015 aimed to better the global society. The year 2020 marks 5 years post-adoption of these SDGs and signals the last decade in which the world is set to take stock of the progress made. This chapter sets the background and tone for the boo...

Universities remain at the forefront of scaling up the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its interlinked 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This chapter investigates how the University of South Africa (UNISA) has localised the water and sanitation SDG to equip itself with eventualities regarding climate change...

The world has gone past 5 years of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) implementation, and their 2030 deadline is fast approaching. It is therefore imperative to make an inventory and a report of what has been done on the ground in some locations to inform further implementation strategies. This chapter summarises the key findings from the book,...

There are increased calls for various industries to be more accountable to the communities they serve by giving back through the localisation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which embeds 17 intertwined Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The aviation industry is no exception and launched its sustainable future initiative by implem...

This book profiles various cases that are emerging in addressing global challenges in the context of SDGs for society in the era of climate change and covers case studies of projects being undertaken to tackle biodiversity, food security, climate change, energy and water security. The book is written by 37 authors, and will appeal to various stakeh...

Climate change-induced extreme weather events have been at their worst increase in the past decade (2010–2020) across Africa and globally. This has proved disruptive to global socio-economic activities. One of the challenges that has been faced in this regard is the increased coastal flooding of cities. This study examined the trends and impacts of...

Climate change-induced extreme weather events have been at their worst increase in the past decade (2010-2020) across Africa and globally. This has proved disruptive to global socioeconomic activities. One of the challenges that have been faced in this regard is the increased coastal flooding of cities. This study examined the trends and impacts of...

As late as 2018, academic publications have still been recommending more research on sustainability reporting in higher education. This chapter focuses on how the University of South Africa (Unisa), an open-distance e-Learning institution, reports sustainability matters under the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and examines the opportunities a...

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions is on record indicating that libraries can drive progress across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) leading to the attainment of the 2030 Agenda. Yet, a 2018 study in Osun State, Nigeria, revealed that none of the libraries surveyed had immediate and/or long-term plans f...

This introductory chapter sets the platform for how the global leadership that includes governments, territories, business, civil society, development partners and individuals can make the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) work and be more relevant for, in and with societies. This way, the world can move quickly towards the attainment of the 203...

The quest for societal development forms the foundation of human aspiration. The path to a prosperous world is fraught with challenges that need urgent attention to improve human livelihoods. The demand for a just, equitable society has never been stronger than now due to the impact of COVID-19 and the increased cost of disasters. This chapter summ...