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Zimbabwe: Country Sinks Deeper into Privation as World Marks Poverty Day
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Financial Gazette (Harare)
18 October 2007
Posted to the web 18 October 2007
Stanley Kwenda
Harare
OCTOBER 17 is celebrated globally as World Poverty Day or International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.
In Zimbabwe, the day is marked at a particularly sad time, when previously routine activities such as getting water from taps, food from supermarkets and electricity at the flick of a switch have become an almost insurmountable challenge.
A number of events were held throughout the country to mark the
day yesterday but the commemorations went mostly unnoticed by Zimbabweans engaged in the daily ordeal of standing in food queues.
Poverty reduction is listed as one of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG), set at a world leaders' meeting in 2000, which should be achieved by 2015.
However, with only eight years to go before the deadline, there is no sign of progress in this regard in Zimbabwe.
Instead, the gains made in the early years of Independence are crumbling with each new year.
From major cities to back-of-beyond places such as Maphisa in Matabeleland South, the story is the same. In rural areas like Lupane in Matabeleland North the poverty is more pronounced.
"The food shortages are very serious because people did not harvest much and they are surviving by the grace of God," said Thubelihle Gwabi of Lupane.
"Had it not been for donors, people would have died. There is politicisation of food, and water problems in Lupane which make things even worse. The water table is getting deeper. Soon it will be difficult to get drinking water."
Donors such as the Organisation of Rural Associations for Progress and Christian Care
provide food aid to the district in the form of maize, cooking oil and beans.
World Bank figures show that worldwide an estimated 1.1 billion people live in "extreme poverty", surviving on less than one United States dollar per day. Women in developing countries bear the brunt of increasing poverty.
The United Nations Population Fund notes that worldwide, women on average earn only slightly more than half what men earn, while women and girls are often the last to eat.
In addition, women's health problems are considered less important than other family priorities.
"We walk seven kilometres a day to get to the nearest well, most of the time carrying our babies. If you don't visit the rural areas often, next time
you visit you might find everyone gone," said Tarisai Mhango of Shurugwi .
"People now eat only millet and peanut butter provided by donors."
In Mt Darwin, the situation is equally dire.
"People continue to lose their livestock to land mines since this is a landmine infested area. There isn't much help coming from government. These people depend on livestock for their survival, but the land mine threat exacerbates the crisis in many surrounding areas," said Ashley Katiyo of Mt Darwin.
In many other rural areas, people survive on anything they find even barely edible.
Even in ZANU PF strongholds such as Magunje, government assistance is unheard of.
"Most people in Magunje survive on monthly food aid packs from relief agencies. People get maize, but they don't have the money to pay the grinding mills," said Shemufudzi Chikova who comes from the area.
The government has been adopting piecemeal measures to eradicate poverty and hunger. Only last week, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe hosted a grand farm mechanisation project aimed at boosting the capacity of farmers to produce by distributing farming implements.
But seed and fertiliser remain in short supply weeks into the farming season.
Minister of Information and Publicity, Skhanyiso Ndlovu said yesterday government acknowledges the level of poverty and destitution in the country.
"Government has directed the Grain Marketing Board to distribute food to areas hardest hit by hunger. There is quite a lot of maize that the government has imported and the people must come forward with their concerns and requirements."
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Ndlovu identified Matabeleland as hardest hit, singling out areas such as Lupane, Binga, Nkayi and Tsholotsho.
"People in these rural areas have no other alternative sources of food, like in urban
areas, but we are not saying that there is any group of people who will be discriminated against in the distribution of food," said Ndlovu.
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| Copyright © 2007 Financial Gazette. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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