By Blessing Vava
In January
this year Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe declared a state of disaster especially in the
rural areas mainly caused by drought which already has killed herds of
livestock with people facing food shortages.
Despite declaring the drought a state of
disaster, Mugabe seems not to care much, he even hosted his lavish 92nd birthday in Masvingo
last month in the drought stricken area and never dared to even visit those
affected, preferring to go AWOL to India.
Suffice to
say the country has been experiencing drought before, but it all seems we are
always caught off guard and failed to come up with long term mitigating
mechanisms to avert future disasters of this type, which I would be discussing
later in the article.
Agriculture contributes about 19% of the
county's GDP and for the past 15 years, Zimbabwe's agricultural output has been
decreasing and productivity has been quite low. Zimbabwe mainly depends on
maize which is the staple diet in most households.
A paper
published by the Met Department in 2015 posits that the drought experienced
during the 1991/1992 season, for example, maize production decreased by almost
75 percent leaving a large percentage of the population in dire need of food
aid. The Grain Marketing Board (GMB) domestic maize intake during the 1992
drought year was about 13 000 tonnes - just enough for two days consumption for
the nation. Over one million head of cattle died of starvation during the year.
Drought returned in 1993 and 1994 2002, 2004
and 2012 seasons which also affected livelihoods. The severe drought of 1992
compelled the government to declare a “National Disaster” throughout the whole
country.
By the end of that year 5 602 568 people were
on the drought relief registers. This figure translated to 74% of the rural
population. During the 2002 drought
almost 4 million Zimbabweans survived on food aid.
This time the drought has been worsened by the
El Niño weather phenomenon which has also affected South Africa, Malawi and Zambia as
well as Zimbabwe, destroying crops and livestock as a result.
In light of this development, the Zimbabwe
Vulnerable Assessment Committee had estimated that about 1.5 million people had
been affected by El Nino. However the
Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Prisca Mupfumira, as
reported in the state owned Herald newspaper,stated that instead the number of those in need of food
aid has ballooned to 4 million.
The figures are just estimates and the actual numbers
of those in vulnerable situations maybe more. As this is happening, the
government, some NGOs, politicians mostly from ZANU PF have already started
distributing food hand outs to the 'affected' areas, with President Mugabe's
wife Grace leading, mainly through her Meet the People rallies.
It is reported (Herald 15 March 2016) that President Mugabe donated about 60 tonnes
in Bikita South and the aid was handed over to villagers by ZANU PF Masvingo
Province secretary for the commissariat Mr Jappy Jaboon. Quite intriguing were
the words of Jaboon during his address, ''Our president has the people at
heart' so let’s continue supporting him...lets continue supporting him because
of his impeccable record as a man of the people especially the poor.''
This already smacks doom and it is now clear that
ZANU PF will use food as a campaign tool. This is despite that the 1996 World
Summit on Food Security declared that "food should not be used as an
instrument for political and economic pressure"
We need a holistic approach, transparency and
honesty in dealing with this drought.
The government has over the years failed to distribute food to the needy
in times like these, with some denied food on the basis of political
affiliation. According to a report compiled by Human Rights Watch on the2002
drought, ZANU PF was heavily implicated in partisan food distribution and for
years, has been abusing government departments concerned with food aid.
This trend is likely going to continue as ZANU
PF and the use of traditional leaders in the distribution of aid has made the
situation worse. The same traditional leaders are often used to intimidate and coerce villagers to vote
for ZANU PF. ZANU PF's strategy has
always been to starve opponents into submission. Nothing has really changed despite statements
by Minister Mupfumira that food is not being distributed along political
affiliation, as reports have already been filtering of the politicisation of
food aid.
With the high numbers of Zimbabweans in need of
food, there is no guarantee that the food will be fairly distributed and this
will only but aggravate the situation as
those in need will likely face starvation. The government alone has proved its
ineffectiveness in addressing the plight of those facing starvation, there is a
need for an independent taskforce with all stakeholders, including farmers,
academics, NGOs, churches and the government in handling food distribution.
Politicians
should be barred in distributing food aid because of the danger it poses in the
likelihood of others being excluded. Worse still for food aid distribution at a
political rally. This clearly excludes those that do not subscribe to that
particular party for example.
Long term mitigation
Overally, the taskforce should also be
responsible coordinating the drought related activities of the government
(i.e., forecasting, monitoring, impact assessment, response and recovery, and
planning).
Equally, the government needs to improve food
security in general, going beyond short term responses but rather coming up
with long term mechanisms to protect peoples' livelihoods. We need as a
country, a more proactive, anticipatory approach to drought management rather
than to act while the damage has been done already.
The independent task force should come up with a
national policy with extensive stakeholder and public involvement. Such a policy should therefore address the
issues of risk management, although it cannot ignore the need for government
assistance for some sectors during extended periods of severe drought.
Lessons learned from previous drought response
attempts need to be documented through post-drought audits and shared with all
stakeholders. In support of the national drought policy and plan, it is
recommended that a comprehensive, integrated national climate monitoring system
be established to provide early warning of drought and
other extreme climate events.
Blessing Vuvuzela Vava
is a writer based in Chipinge, Zimbabwe. He can be contacted on
blessingvava@gmail.com
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