Friday, March 29, 2024

Briefing – An Unhappy New Year for Zimbabwe

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By Obi Anyadike

Loveness January lost her three cattle and half her crop to last year’s drought, and fears another poor season will mean ruin for her family farming a small plot of land in Seke, 40 kilometres southeast of the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.

“If the rains don’t come we will suffer,” she said simply. “There is nothing more we can do – we need help.”

Drought and an economic meltdown have combined to push Zimbabwe to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe, aid workers warn, with levels of hunger rarely seen outside of war zones.

By early next year, some eight million people – half the population – will be short of food.

A series of interviews and visits to urban and rural parts of Zimbabwe this month by The New Humanitarian confirms the grim mood of official reports and warnings from aid agencies and local media.

In the countryside, after a season of poor rains, 5.5 million farmers – some of whom suffered total crop failure – will struggle to find food. In urban areas, where an inflation rate of 300 percent is forcing the poorest to survive on just one meal a day, 2.2 million people are affected.

“The numbers in need could easily climb well beyond six million in the rural areas by next year, and we could also see an increase in the urban areas,” World Food Programme country director, Eddie Rowe, told TNH.

The crisis is exacerbated by a formal employment rate of just 10 percent, an indebted government that is struggling to provide basic services, perennial shortages of fuel and foreign exchange, and regular 18-hour power cuts.

“If the government doesn’t act now, Zimbabwe is marching towards unprecedented food insecurity levels,” warned Rowe.

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