Mounting Scramble for Coronavirus Vaccines in Zimbabwe

More than a month ago, she lost her parents, brother, and wife, to the coronavirus. Then her fiancé battled COVID-19, but 27-year-old Melinda Gavi said she had not contracted the disease.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2021/10/mounting-scramble-coronavirus-vaccines-zimbabwe/

Zimbabwe’s Urban Sprawl Dilemma

Ndaba Dube, a Bulawayo resident, says he built himself a home on a small piece of land after the authorities kept him on the housing waiting list for more than two decades. The land he chose is in an old township established before Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2021/08/zimbabwes-urban-sprawl-dilemma/

Charcoal Production Risks Future of Zimbabwe’s Native Forests

Once a week a tonnage of fresh charcoal is dropped off at Sibangani Tshobe's rugged, pit-stop stall by a hired, battered old Bedford lorry. Small, makeshift trolleys — nicknamed Scania's — quickly cart off small loads and disappear into Old Pumula, the oldest suburb in the country’s second-largest city of Bulawayo.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2021/06/charcoal-production-risks-future-of-zimbabwes-native-forests/

Calls for Zimbabwean Journalist Jeffrey Moyo to be Given a Fair Trial after Bail is Denied

As international correspondent Jeffrey Moyo was denied bail for allegedly breaching a section of the Zimbabwe Immigration Act by helping two foreign journalists work in the country without proper media accreditation, local organisations have called for his release and for him to be accorded a fair trial.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2021/06/calls-for-zimbabwean-journalist-jeffrey-moyo-to-be-given-a-fair-trial-after-bail-is-denied/

COVID-19 Locks Down Therapy Support for Zimbabwe’s Trafficking Survivors

Before Zimbabwe imposed lockdown measures last March as part of global efforts to curb the coronavirus pandemic, Grace Mashingaidze* would attend workshops in Harare arranged by a nongovernmental organisation assisting trafficked women who had safely made it back home.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2021/04/covid-19-locks-down-therapy-support-for-zimbabwes-trafficking-survivors/

“In Zimbabwe there is Freedom of Speech, but no Freedom After the Speech”

A long-running gag says “in Zimbabwe there is freedom of speech, but no freedom after the speech”. But for journalists and activists who have been forced to endure nights in the country’s overcrowded and filthy holding cells, this is no laughing matter as prison inmates have no personal protective equipment to guard against COVID-19.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2021/01/in-zimbabwe-there-is-freedom-of-speech-but-no-freedom-after-the-speech/

More Children in Zimbabwe Are Working to Survive: What’s Needed

The ability of Zimbabwean families to take care of children has been compromised by a collapsing economy, compounded by COVID-19. About 4.3 million people in rural communities, including children, are food insecure this year. The World Food Programme indicates that at least 60% of the population of Zimbabwe need food aid.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/11/children-zimbabwe-working-survive-whats-needed/

Punches & Insults: Why Zimbabwe’s Women Candidates Want to Change the Political Playing Field

“I have long given up on active politics,” Gertrude Sidambe, a 36-year-old member of one of Zimbabwe’s opposition parties, tells IPS. When female members of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front complained last month about political violence as male members chose brawn over brains to solicit for positions, the party’s National Secretary for Women’s Affairs Mabel Chinomona advised that they enter the punch-and-insult battlefield and “fight” like everyone else. 
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/11/punches-insults-why-women-in-zimbabwe-want-to-change-the-political-playing-field/

Why a Zimbabwean Farming Project Failed: Lessons for Rural Innovation

Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa commit resources to promote agricultural innovations. This is based on the assumption that rural livelihoods are mainly agricultural and that the innovations will increase agricultural production and household income.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/10/zimbabwean-farming-project-failed-lessons-rural-innovation/

Sustainability of Zimbabwe’s Natural Food Sources take a Knock Amid Growing Economic Crisis

Sarudzai Moyo, a former teacher, has begun a new career as a fishmonger. Once a week she makes the 450km journey from Bulawayo to Binga, on the shores of Lake Kariba, where she buys between 100 and 150 kilograms of fish for resale as the demand for cheaper dietary options increase in Zimbabwe.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/10/sustainability-zimbabwes-natural-food-sources-take-knock-amid-growing-economic-crisis/

Zimbabwe and US Diplomacy – this Time the Fight is About George Floyd

“As tall as he is, if he continues to do that I will kick him out of the country,” thundered Zimbabwe’s former President Robert Mugabe in 2008, his anger aimed at the then United States ambassador James McGee after the diplomat questioned the results of Zimbabwe’s 2008 general elections.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/06/zimbabwe-u-s-diplomacy-this-time-the-fight-is-about-george-floyd/

Digital Agriculture Benefits Zimbabwe’s Farmers but Mobile Money is Costly

Shurugwi communal farmer, Elizabeth Siyapi (57) can no longer be scammed by unscrupulous middlemen to sell her crops cheaply. Nowadays, before she takes her produce to market she scours her mobile phone, which has become an essential digital agriculture data bank, for the best prices on the market.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/05/digital-agriculture-benefits-zimbabwes-farmers-but-mobile-money-is-costly/

COVID-19: Zimbabwe’s Smallholder Farmers Step into the Food Supply Gap

Bulawayo, Zimbabwe' second city of some 700,000 people, has experienced a shortage of vegetables this year, with major producers citing a range of challenges from poor rains to the inability to access to bank loans to finance their operations. But this shortage has created a market gap that Zimbabwe smallholders — some 1.5 million people according to government figures — have an opportunity to fill. 
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/05/covid-19-zimbabwes-smallholder-farmers-step-food-supply-gap/

Zimbabwe’s Afforestation Challenge

“I have never planted a tree in my life,” laughs Jairos Saunyama, a tobacco farmer, revelling at the absurdity of the question of whether he is involved in the country's afforestation efforts. Sawunyama is one of thousands of farmers who are blamed by local conservationists for turning the country's forests into deserts and dust bowls.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/03/zimbabwes-afforestation-challenge/

Current Laws Cannot Protect Zimbabwe’s Women from Sex Trafficking

Similo Ntuli* looks like a ordinary, fashion-savvy woman in her twenties. As a hairdresser and beauty therapist in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second-largest city, Ntuli has her finger on the pulse of the latest styles and trends. But she also has, what she admits, are dark secrets.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/03/current-laws-cannot-protect-zimbabwes-women-sex-trafficking/

Zimbabwe’s Thin Line between Child Smuggling and Child Trafficking

Elton Ndumiso*, a bus-conductor who works the route from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, to neighbouring South Africa, sees it all the time: Zimbabwean women travelling with three or four children, who are clearly not their own kids, and taking them across the border.

It’s a crime that most bus drivers or conductors either turn a blind eye to, or become accomplices in by assisting the women. 

https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/02/zimbabwes-thin-line-child-smuggling-child-trafficking/

Will Zimbabwe Allow Freedom of Airwaves and Freedom of Speech too?

Zimbabwe is making fresh commitments to open up its airwaves with government promising to issue licences to private television and community radio stations before the end of the year.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/02/will-zimbabwe-allow-freedom-airwaves-freedom-speech/

Vegetables Rot in Food Markets across Zimbabwe While Half the Population Faces Food Insecurity

Piles and piles of rotting vegetables at food markets situated right in Zimbabwe's central business district would elsewhere be viewed as a sign of plenty. But this Southern African nation has not been spared the irony of food wastage at a time of food shortages.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/02/vegetables-rot-food-markets-across-zimbabwe-half-population-faces-food-insecurity/

A Humanitarian Response to the Crisis in Zimbabwe

In November 2019, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food described Zimbabwe – a country once hailed as the bread basket of Africa – as a state on the brink of man-made starvation.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/02/humanitarian-response-crisis-zimbabwe/

Biofortified Crops Improve Farmers’ Livelihoods in Zimbabwe

Steven Seremwe, who is 57 years old, was retrenched from his job as an administrator at Lake Shore Missions in 2012. He decided to focus on farming, and he started growing various crops—white maize, sugar beans, and sweet potatoes, among others—for consumption and sale.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/01/biofortified-crops-improve-farmers-livelihoods-zimbabwe/

Genuine Reform Culture Lacking in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe needs urgent economic and political reforms to transform its economy amidst a growing national crisis, researchers say in a new study that urges swift policy changes and a sound financial framework to attract investment.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/01/genuine-reform-culture-lacking-zimbabwe/