Caiphas Chimhete
10 January 2009
MORE than 75% of Zimbabweans are living in abject poverty while more than half of the population is in urgent need of food assistance to avert imminent starvation, international aid agencies said last week.
Save the Children, a United Kingdom-based aid organisation, said the economic meltdown had left over 10 million of the estimated 12,5 million people in the country living in "desperate poverty".
Children are the most affected by the economic crisis, which is characterised by food and foreign currency shortages, the recent outbreak of cholera and anthrax as well as collapse of the education and health sectors.
Cholera, a preventable and curable disease, has killed more than 1 700 people since August last year, a clear indication of the collapse of the country's health delivery system.
The aid agency said acute child malnutrition in parts of Zimbabwe had increased by almost two thirds in 2008, compared with the previous year. "Children are bearing the brunt of a crushing economic meltdown that has left 10 million people in desperate poverty," said the aid agency in a recent report.
Save the Children estimated that 18 000 tonnes of food was needed for this month.
The World Food Programme (WFP), which mobilises assistance for needy countries, said about 5,1 million people in Zimbabwe would need food aid this month.
It said the number of people in need of assistance could increase as more households exhaust food stocks from the previous harvest.
But the National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (Nango), an association of local aid agencies, said the number of people requiring food aid was now well above the projected 5,1 million because of the worsening economic crisis.
Nango advocacy and communications manager Fambai Ngirande said the projected figure of 5,1 million had now been surpassed.
"It's way beyond that figure and the situation is worsening," Ngirande said.
He said poverty was being fuelled by the dollarisation of the economy, crop failure in some parts of the country and inability by government to adequately support farmers with farming inputs.
As a result of hunger, said Ngirande, most people were resorting to negative coping mechanisms to survive such as prostitution, child labour, eating poisonous roots as well as leaving the country in search of a better life.
Save the Children said: "For those left behind, this crisis has left families living in abject poverty, unable to buy enough food to eat or to afford healthcare." Some families have resorted to eating one proper meal a day.
Ngirande called on government to come up with a budget empowering social ministries to contain the current crisis that has impoverished the majority of the population.
He said more funding should be channelled to social service sectors such as health, education and food provision.
"We urge them to come up with a very strong dimension to empower social services ministries to contain the crisis we are experiencing in the country," Ngirande said.
This year's national budget could not be presented in November last year because of the absence of a legally constituted government.
The budget can only be presented after the conclusion of talks between Zanu PF and the two MDC formations to set up an all-inclusive government.
Last year the government banned aid agencies in the country accusing them of working with the MDC to topple President Robert Mugabe's administration.
Although they have resumed operations, said Ngirande, there were still "some structural" hindrances to their work.
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