Women and children in Zimbabwe queue for hours to fetch water from boreholes. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Jan 28 2013 (IPS)

For three weeks Tavonga Kwidini and his wife Maria had no tap water in their home in Glen View, one of the many dry suburbs in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

The couple was just about at the end of their tether when heavy rains came like a gift from the heavens.

“We now harvest rainwater and that’s what we use to bathe, drink and flush our toilets,” Kwidini told IPS as he lined up his buckets underneath the roof of his house in anticipation of the January showers.

Such has been his life since the second week of December 2012, which was the last time he had tap water. Surprisingly, he still receives the council water bill averaging around 80 dollars every month.

“Water problems are not new here — in 2008 some of my neighbours died of cholera because of these shortages but the (city) council is not doing anything to make sure that we have safe household water,” according to Kwidini.

U.N. assistance still needed

In the past the problem was largely blamed on shortages of water treatment chemicals, but for nearly half a decade this excuse has been inadequate, as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) provided these chemicals to the country’s 20 urban councils free of charge.

U.N. assistance came in response to Zimbabwe’s 2008 cholera epidemic that killed about 4,000 people. It was not until last April, when local authorities indicated that the situation was under control, that UNICEF discontinued its support, according to UNICEF Chief Communications Officer Micaela Marques de Sousa.

However, experts and locals agree that the current status quo might force the aid agency to rethink its position, given that access to safe water is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), whose 2015 target is fast approaching.

Until the UNICEF Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programme withdrew in 2008 the situation had improved visibly, with greater numbers of people in Zimbabwe’s 20 urban centres able to access safe water and sanitation services.

Now it is common to see many people in urban Zimbabwe carrying buckets and walking in search of water, a sight that had hitherto been limited to rural areas.

“We have no option but to move from one area to the next in search of boreholes with clean water. These days we are lucky because of the rains, otherwise I would be carrying a 20-litre bucket to my work place to bring drinking water home,” said Kwidini, who works at a wholesale shop in central Harare.

Residents seek alternatives

As with many crises, women and children are shouldering the lion’s share of the burden.

Women who have now resorted to doing their washing in water bodies that are often used as dumping areas by industrial companies are vulnerable to several health hazards.

Meanwhile, children are being forced into the role of “water bearer”.

“My day starts at five a.m. as I join a queue at the local borehole to get bath water for my father, myself and for household use,” fourteen-year-old Thelma told IPS.

Like many of her peers Thelma has to join the long water line early or else she will be late for school.

The number of functioning boreholes is inadequate to service the urban population, and when they break down – a common occurrence – they are often left in a state of disrepair.

A borehole at the Tichagarika Shopping Centre in Glen View suburb, which serviced hundreds of residents, broke down in June last year and remained dormant until its components were stolen.

The government assisted Harare in sinking 250 boreholes across the capital but residents say most of these have either broken down or only provide contaminated water.

According to the Health and Child Welfare Ministry’s disease monitoring report, an estimated 50 typhoid cases are reported each day in Harare and its satellite towns. Roughly 500,000 people in Zimbabwe suffered from diarrhoea in 2012; of these, 460,000 were serious cases and 281 were fatal.

Statistics from an advocacy group, the Harare Residents Trust (HRT), suggest that only 192,000 households in Harare, a city of two million people, are connected to the water system, while the rest depend on boreholes or rainwater.

To make matters worse HRT says the city is losing 60 percent of its treated water to leakages in the old infrastructure. Harare needs 1,300 mega litres of water daily but the current supply per day ranges from 600-700 mega litres, approximately half of the demand.

On top of this, Zimbabwe spends 27 million dollars a month to treat the water supply.

HRT Director Precious Shumba told IPS that the problems facing the city are a sign of local councils’ failure to adequately provide its residents with the most basic services.

“We are most disappointed with the level of service provision — the quality is atrocious and residents are complaining of stomachaches and diarrhoeal diseases like typhoid. Most of the time, the water coming out of taps is smelly and has visible impurities,” said Shumba.

“In areas like Crowborough, Dzivarasekwa and Glen Norah, Budiriro, residents have witnessed sadza (cooked cornmeal) and vegetable particles flowing out of their taps, raising genuine fears of the safety and sustainably of this water for human consumption,” Shumba added.

A recent study from the University of Zimbabwe indicated that one in every 1,000 people in the capital is at risk of developing colon or liver cancer due to continuous consumption of unsafe water pumped from polluted sources.

Christopher Zvobgo, a Harare city engineer, strongly disputed these findings, though he admitted that the city undoubtedly faces water-related challenges.

“We test water on a daily basis and we take samples from different points. Every month we send (the samples) to two independent laboratories for testing and they meet the World Health Organisation (WHO) standard,” he said adding that the biggest problem lies in the aged water infrastructure.

But back in Glen View, residents like Alois Chidoda and his children are forced to rely on boreholes because the water coming out of their tap is “brown in colour” and simply not fit for consumption, he told IPS.

“Using it will be inviting disease,” Chidoda added.

President of the Urban Councils Association of Zimbabwe (UCAZ), Femias Chakabuda, blames the water shortages in the country’s urban areas on mounting government debts.

“The problem is our government wants to use water for free. That makes it impossible for us to repair water infrastructure and pay our own service providers,” he told IPS, adding that the government currently owes Harare City Council over 10 million dollars, Masvingo City Council over seven million dollars and Bulawayo City Council four million dollars in back-payment for water services.

Pansy Tlakula, commissioner of the African Commission on Human Peoples’ Rights, wants to see legal conditions implemented in Africa that allow journalists the freedom to do their jobs. Courtesy: Independent Electoral Commission

By Stanley Kwenda
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 4 2012 (IPS)

Pansy Tlakula, the African Union’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information, has done her best to address the continued harassment of journalists in the Gambia.

In her role as commissioner of the African Commission on Human Peoples’ Rights, she has appealed many times to the government of the West African nation to respect people’s right to freedom of expression.

“I have written several letters to the government with regard to the recent arrest of journalists – the government is now tired of my letters. We have done everything possible to highlight the issue in the Gambia and other African countries,” she told IPS.

But it has not been enough to prevent the Gambian government’s crackdown on the media.

In September, the government arrested two journalists and shut down their newspapers, The Standard and The Daily News, as they had extensively covered opposition to the government’s execution of nine death row inmates.

In June, the country’s former Minister of Information and Communications Amadou Scattred Janneh and three others were arrested for printing and distributing T-shirts that called for an end to the dictatorship in the Gambia.

Janneh, who is also a U.S. citizen, had been charged with treason and jailed for life and was only released after U.S. civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson intervened.

Tlakula said that the African Commission on Human Peoples’ Rights had taken up Janneh’s case with the Economic Community of West African States.

“But unfortunately the Gambia has not ratified the protocol establishing the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and we cannot take them to the court,” she said.

But the failure with the Gambia has not curbed Tlakula’s passion to ensure media freedom on the continent. Recently, she took the unprecedented step of instructing African governments to establish independent media regulatory bodies, saying that politicians and governments have no business owning the media.

Tlakula, who is an advocate of the South African High Court, a former member of the South African Human Rights Commission and current chairperson of the country’s Independent Electoral Commission, wants to see legal conditions implemented in Africa that allow journalists the freedom to do their jobs.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Q: What role should journalists play in Africa?

A: Journalists have to expose corruption, criminal activity and all the bad things on the continent, but at the same time we also have to expose good things happening on our continent because this is our home.

We can’t expose only the bad things to the world about what’s happening in Africa. We have to take our destiny in our hands and tell our own stories as Africans as we see them and experience them and not let other people tell our stories.

Q: Several countries in Africa still don’t have laws that promote the right to information. At a continental level how would you want the issue pushed to ensure that we have the right to access information across the continent?

A: We have pushed that a little bit. We have developed a model on access to information in Africa. We started the process of developing it in five African countries and now we have 10 that have adopted access to information laws.

More than a dozen countries now have access to information bills pending before their parliaments. We are hoping that this model will give a push to these initiatives because we feel we should not just criticise the countries, but assist them to achieve freedom of expression. Without the right to information, all other rights cannot be realised.

Q: Zimbabwe has had a very bad media freedom reputation in the past. As it now drafts a new constitution, what is your advice to the country?

A: The new constitution will not resolve all the problems. Even after the new constitution is put in place, you will still have to deal with laws that impede expression like the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the Public Order and Security Act, and all the other laws that are not in conformity with the regional and international instruments that Zimbabwe has ratified.

Those laws remain a source of concern for us but we are hoping that with the adoption of the constitution, the constitutionality of these laws will be revisited.

Once the new constitution has been adopted, these laws have to either be revisited or repealed. If not, then they can be challenged in court. The new constitution is a step in the right direction, though the laws will have to be in conformity with the constitution.

Q: Are we making any progress with regard to media freedom on the continent?

A: Yes we are making progress by encouraging some countries to adopt laws that promote media freedom. We now have a campaign aimed at the decriminalisation of libel.

The first phase of this campaign is to identify where these (libel) laws exist because where they are they have a chilling effect on expression. We are piloting this campaign in Zambia and Botswana.

Q: How are you dealing with the increasing arguments by some countries that their reluctance to adopt freedom of expression is a result of national security concerns?

A: This raises a serious question about the need to draw a line about the need to make information available and accessible in a way that would not compromise national security. It’s a big issue and we are trying to come up with guidelines on access to information and national security. It’s a matter that pre-occupies the whole world, and that work is on-going.

Q: What do you make of South African President Jacob Zuma’s move to withdraw his lawsuit against journalist and cartoonist Jonathan Zapiro, whom he was suing for thousands of dollars over a cartoon which showed him preparing to rape a woman with the help of his government and political party members?

A: I am very, very happy. It’s a victory for freedom of expression and journalism in Africa.

Tomson Chikowero was ashamed of his job. He did not want anyone finding out what he did to earn a living, so he used to wake up early every morning and leave his home in Hatfield, a residential suburb in Zimbabwe’s capital city Harare, under the cover of darkness.

And he would return only after sunset when no one could see him carrying the bags of plastic bottles that he collected from people’s trash that day.

Tomson Chikowero carrying the bags of plastic bottles that he collected from people’s trash for recycling. People like him have become Zimbabwe’s unlikely climate change ambassadors. Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

For the middle-class Chikowero, who was formerly employed as a builder but lost his job in 2010, collecting plastic and cardboard boxes from people’s trash to resell was embarrassing at first. But now he has become one of a handful of unlikely climate change ambassadors here.

Climate change has already had an impact on the country, with the Meteorological Service Department confirming that rainfall here has declined, while temperatures have risen in the past few years. It will, according to a study released on Mar. 21 titled Strengthening national capacity for climate change programme in Zimbabwe, place the country’s food security and economic growth at risk.

However, trash has a role to play in climate change mitigation in this southern African nation. A 2010 publication by the United Nations Environment Programme titled Waste and Climate Change said: “after waste prevention, recycling has been shown to result in the highest climate benefit compared to other waste management approaches. This appears to be the case … also in developing countries.”

Barnabas Mawire, the country director for Environment Africa, an environmental NGO, agreed that recycling is important for Zimbabwe.

“Recycling helps climate change (mitigation) a great deal…If industries recycle plastic bottles and scrap materials they will not use the same amount of energy they would use if they were making plastic or metal from scratch. If they recycle, they would use less raw materials and energy and that has been proven to reduce the carbon footprint,” he told IPS.

The United States’ Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) factsheet on recycling stated that “recycling plastics uses only roughly 10 percent of the energy it takes to make a pound of plastic from virgin materials.”

While there are no estimates on how much Zimbabwe would save in greenhouse gas emissions, recycling in the United Kingdom currently saves more than 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, the annual emissions of 177,879 passenger vehicles.

But many Zimbabweans are not aware of climate change or mitigation efforts. This southern African country has no climate change policy, though it is in the process of formulating one with the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.

So when Chikowero first started collecting trash he, along with the hundreds of others who sort through people’s trash to collect plastic and cardboard boxes for resale, merely did it to earn a living in a country with an unemployment rate of 70 percent. A kilogramme of plastic can be sold for between seven and 10 dollars.

While there are no official figures on how many people earn a living from this, the sight of people collecting trash from Harare’s suburbs is a common one. Plastic buyers at the Mbare Musika market in Harare told IPS that they deal with over 200 garbage collectors every day.

The market is the biggest in the city, and has an organised area for buyers of recyclable material. In addition, Mukundi Plastics, a packaging and recycling company in Harare’s industrial area, said that they receive deliveries from about 100 people a day.

Recycling is important to the country. According to the Environmental Management Authority, a government body set up to protect environmental services and goods, Zimbabwe is running out of landfill sites.

In addition, the Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa 2011 said that Zimbabwean households generate solid waste amounting to 2.7 kg per day, of which only 47 percent is biodegradable. Authorities often resort to burning trash as a way of disposing it, a practice considered harmful to the environment.

Recycling is a great way to combat this.

Chikowero first learnt about climate change and how recycling can reduce carbon emissions when a buyer mentioned it to him and other trash collectors as a way of encouraging them to continue their work.

“We were just doing this for the money when we started, and I wondered why people are interested in buying plastic bottles and cardboard boxes, until we were told what happens once the plastic is bought from us,” Chikowero said. It is recycled by both local and international companies for the manufacture of soft drink bottles and cereal boxes.

He also did not realise that by encouraging domestic workers in the homes he collected trash from to separate paper from plastic, he was helping Zimbabwe with climate change mitigation.

According to the study Strengthening national capacity for climate change programme in Zimbabwe, commissioned by the government and U.N. agencies, the nation lacks the capacity to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

“I asked them to separate plastic bottles from the waste that they put in their rubbish bins. At first they were hostile to the idea, but with time when they became familiar with me and understood why I was asking them to do so, it became easy,” said Chikowero.

The more people embraced the idea, the easier his job became. And he is now able to collect larger amounts of plastic in less time, thereby earning more money.

Currently he collects plastic from 50 blocks of residential flats in Harare’s city centre and the outlying areas of Eastlea.

The caretakers of these flats are also fast becoming part of his sphere of influence. “They help me a lot and that makes my job easy,” said Chikowero as he pointed to a notice by the caretaker encouraging residents to separate their paper and plastic from the rest of their waste on a wall at the St. Tropez Flats in Eastlea.

Here, housemaids Idah Ndadziyira and Tatenda Munjoma told IPS that three other plastic collectors passed through the building on a regular basis, and that they, like Chikowero, taught them about climate change and the importance of recycling.

“I did not know what it was about. In fact I thought it could only happen in other countries and not in Zimbabwe until the plastic collectors educated me about it… I am now sharing the information with other people,” Ndadziyira told IPS.

Chikowero has now gotten every third house in the Eastlea suburb to recycle their plastic, and other households are steadily catching up.

“It’s now a way of life. That’s why this movement is growing,” said Chikowero.

Even the country’s National Climate Change Committee coordinator, Dr. Toddy Ngara, acknowledged the efforts of trash collectors like Chikowero.

“Their work is commendable, they have helped a lot in cleaning our cities and are now helping to clean the environment with their contribution to the recycling industry,” Ngara told IPS.

The government’s climate adaptation committee has promised to consult and use them as ambassadors in developing a national climate change strategy.

The director of environment at the Ministry of Environment, Irvin Kunene, said at a climate change policy meeting in Harare in early May that “all stakeholders including trash collectors will be consulted in crafting the country’s national climate change policy.”

And it has made Chikowero proud of his job.

“Now, I am no longer ashamed,” he told IPS.

* This article is one of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.

There are some unlikely comparisons between the work lives of Mohammed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit seller who sparked the Arab revolution, and Francis Tachirev, a fruit seller in Zimbabwe.

Francis Tachirev, a fruit seller in Zimbabwe lives in fear of the local police confiscating his goods. Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

The protests that started it all began after Bouazizi burnt himself after the police confiscated his fruit-vending cart. Nationwide protests after Bouaziz’s death led to Tunisia’s former President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali fleeing the country and giving up power. Bouaziz’s dramatic death changed the world, starting what is now referred to as the Arab Spring.

Like Bouazizi did, Tichareva earns a modest living pushing his fruit cart along Harare’s central business district, selling his wares. And like Bouazizi too, Tichareva lives in fear of the local police confiscating his goods, especially now that the Zimbabwean Police and the Harare City Council have launched a campaign to drive illegal vendors out of the city.

Tichareva began work as a fruit vendor in 2008 when the clothing factory he worked at closed.

“I got tired of looking for a job and the only way to earn a living was to make this cart and start selling fruit,” Tichareva told IPS as he kept an eye out for the police patrolling the streets of Harare.

The police and council officials move around the city in trucks arresting vendors who sell goods without a licence and confiscating their merchandise. The raids are often violent as the vendors have now organised themselves and are fighting back. On Jan. 11 the Harare city centre came to a standstill as the police and vendors fought, with vendors throwing stones at the police.

During the first two weeks of January several police officers were left injured and a police post in the centre of town was forced to close during the clashes. The local newspaper The Zimbabwean reported that two vendors had to be hospitalised after being tortured by police. The newspaper also said the reporters from the local newspaper the Daily News had been detained by police for covering the event.

Although the protests are a long way from sparking a revolution in Zimbabwe, the determination of vendors to fight for their livelihoods is a sign that people will no longer remain silent about their suffering.

University of Zimbabwe political lecturer who studies political and social trends, Eldred Masunungure, told the local Daily News newspaper that although it is unheard of in Zimbabwe to fight with the police, the fact that civilians are starting to do so is a sign of the times.

“The people are fed-up with their suffering and that could be the only way they can show off their bitterness. Most of them have been trying to earn a living from vending but only for the police to act hard on them,” Masunungure told the Daily News. “They could have decided to revert back at police officers because they were tired with the situation.”

Many of the vendors, like Tichareva, cannot afford to pay 125 dollars a month in licence fees for a legal permit to sell fruit in the city. Tichareva told IPS that he only makes, at most, 90 dollars a month.

And like Bouazizi, he is fed up with the police. Bouazizi’s story is one that has not escaped the notice of this street vendor in this Southern African nation.

Close to where Tichareva sells his wares are newspaper vendors and he usually sneaks a look at the daily headlines. He told IPS that he read about Bouazizi but will not contemplate burning himself even though he faces the same challenges that Bouazizi did.

“I read the story but I will not kill myself. If the police attack me, I will fight back,” said Tichareva adding, “We work hard but they stretch us too much what do they want us to do?”

Many other vendors share Tichareva’s sentiments. Several women and men continue to swarm the walkways in central Harare selling all types of merchandise in defiance of the police clampdown.

“We fight the police because they are the ones who started attacking us. They took our goods to eat or sell at their houses when we also looking to survive,” Tafadzwa Nyamupfachitu, a 27-year-old mother of six-year-old triplets, told IPS.

She earns a living for her family by selling fruit, cigarettes and cell phone airtime. “We are angered by this because we also want to survive. We must enjoy ourselves in our country of birth freely. If we don’t survive that way there is no life for us because we cannot become criminals or turn to prostitution for a living,” she said.

The police have, however, vowed to step up the arrests until the city is organised.

Harare councillor and chairman of the Elected Councillors Association of Zimbabwe, Warship Dumba, said the arrests are necessary to maintain order in the city.

“They must operate from designated areas,” said Dumba of the vendors.

Dumba’s comments come at a time when 90 percent of Zimbabwe’s people of a working age are unemployed, according to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. Most of the vendors used to work in industries that have since closed due to the country’s long-running economic crisis.

The Committee of the People Charter (CPC), a grouping of like-minded Zimbabweans fighting for pro- people policies, said in a statement that the clampdown on vendors is a sign of the council’s ignorance of how important these informal traders are to the economy.

“The council has no understanding of the importance of the informal economy to the livelihoods of thousands of Zimbabweans. It is demonstrating not only ignorance, but insensitivity, to the interests and circumstances that residents must confront,” CPC said in its statement.

“The CPC calls for an immediate end to these undemocratic actions of disenfranchising the poor and for the council to immediately come up with a comprehensive employment and job creation plan.”

But Dumba still maintains that street vendors need licences to operate in the city.

“We can’t let people cause total confusion in the city centre just because there is too much unemployment in the country. We cannot allow people to just sell their things anywhere. We are worried about health and hygiene issues.”

Bouazizi may be long gone but his fight to earn a decent living remains a common one for the poor and marginalised in Africa.

Joel Njagi and his son Tinashe sell axes and hoes for a living. They are some of the vendors in central Harare who have clashed with the police in the recent protests.

They have known no other job except making and selling hoes and axes. For them times are tough and they will do anything they can to hang on to their livelihoods. The elder Njagi vowed to take his axe to the head of “anyone who tries to take my property.”

Alec Marembo has built his family fortune making bricks in Dzivarasekwa, a sprawling high-density suburb north of the capital of Zimbabwe. But due to the economic crisis of the last decade, his fortune started crumbling. Although he could break even when the downturn started, he finally gave in to competition from the Chinese.

The Wing Wah Chinese restaurant in Harare. Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

“I don’t understand how our government can allow the Chinese to come here and take over small jobs that we consider family ventures and pass them on as investment,” Marembo told IPS as he gazes into the distance where a new Chinese brick factory lies.

The government of President Robert Mugabe introduced the “look east” policy in 2004, after top government officials and state companies were slapped with sanctions by the UK, the United States and other western countries for alleged human rights abuses.

The policy has encouraged China and other Asian countries to invest in Zimbabwe, which they have done without attaching any conditions in the manner of trading partners in the west.

Times have been hard for many Zimbabweans due to the closure of a number of industries caused by the crippling economic crisis.

So when Chinese investors started arriving they were welcomed with open arms. But the trade relationship is now raising questions.

“The Chinese, like any other investors, are welcome but they have to come and build industries which will offer people employment,” Thulani Mkwebo, a small shop owner in downtown Harare, told IPS. “If I had a choice I would drive them out.”

Resentment against the Chinese can be felt in many parts of Zimbabwe.

Recently there were wildcat strikes at several Chinese-run business ventures. Last month some 600 Zimbabwean construction workers employed by a Chinese construction and mining company, Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Company (AFECC), downed their tools.

They were protesting bad labour practices ranging from physical abuse to irregular working hours and low wages pegged at four U.S. dollars a day – far below the rates set by the Zimbabwe National Employment Council (ZNEC) for the construction industry, which are between 1.00 and 1.50 dollars an hour.

The company is building a 98 million dollar military college just outside Harare, financed with a Chinese loan to be repaid with diamonds.

AFECC is mining diamonds in eastern Zimbabwe, in partnership with the Zimbabwean military, according to the Ministry of Mines.

The Chinese have many interests in this southern African country. But the retail sector, mining for diamonds and minerals, construction, manufacturing and agriculture are the main attractions.

According to a 2011 report by the Zimbabwe Economic Policy Analysis and Research Unit, Zimbabwe’s exports to China rose from 100 million dollars in 2000 to 167 million dollars in 2003, but fell to 140 million dollars in 2009.

Imports from China, meanwhile, climbed from 30 million dollars in 2000 to 197 million dollars in 2007, before taking a dip in 2008.

This country’s exports to China are largely in the form of raw materials, with tobacco and minerals being the main products, while Zimbabwe receives loans and various finished products – most of which are popularly referred to here as “ZhingZhongs” (poor quality products).

But this has not deterred the Chinese, who have set up small businesses pushing locals, particularly cross- border traders, out of business as they cannot compete with cheap Chinese products.

Mara Hativagone, a former president of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) and chairperson of the Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA), said the Chinese should not compete for the downstream industries traditionally reserved for locals.

“We want to see more technology transfer from foreigners. They must not come here and do all sorts of funny things, taking advantage of the existing relationship between the two countries,” Hativagone told IPS.

“There is no way Zimbabweans can compete with the Chinese, because they use cheap labour and mass produce while half the time we have no water and electricity in our industries to produce,” she said.

She also accused the Chinese of being cheats. “Sometimes the Zimbabwe Investment Authority gives them manufacturing licenses, but they go and open restaurants under such big Chinese names as Wing Wah International Hotel and Shangri-la,” she said.

Zimbabwe’s ambassador to China between 2002 and 2007, Chris Mutsvangwa, who now runs MONCRIS, a consultancy firm which helps people from China set up businesses in Zimbabwe, said he does not expect the Chinese to flood business opportunities reserved for locals.

“Any end of the industry anywhere in the world should be reserved for locals. I would not expect Zimbabweans to go to China to compete with the Chinese in small businesses, and I don’t expect the Chinese to do the same,” Mutsvangwa said.

“The Chinese have to come and exploit other areas where we have a shortage, but we should not completely bash them but look at other things that they have done for us. They have helped offer competition for the Americans, and now the girlfriend has another boyfriend.”

After the government’s land reform programme began in 2000, U.S. business interests left in droves to relocate to neighbouring South Africa, depriving Zimbabwe of millions in potential foreign exchange earnings.

Beijing is aware of the jitters and has warned against undoing the existing relationship.

“China understands the need for indigenisation and empowerment but we hope Zimbabwe will protect the legitimate right of Chinese businesses in the country,” Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan told the media during a visit to Harare last year.

But there is also popular support for the Chinese doing business here.

“The Chinese are welcome, we love them, they bring us cheap goods, and whoever says they don’t want them should first create jobs for us,” said Zvikomborero Moyo, a hair and clothing boutique worker in downtown Harare. “With Chinese help, we can start businesses, we buy from them very cheaply and resell in the suburbs and that way we are able to make a living.”

A new constitution, voters’ roll and electoral law, among other things, have to be in place before elections in Zimbabwe can be held but observers doubt if this can be implemented.

The special Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit held from Jun. 10 to 12 in Johannesburg concluded that an agreement signed by the country’s three political parties, which agreed to a number of democratic measures among them the drafting of a new constitution for the country, democratising laws and reconstituting the country’s electoral body needed to be implemented. So far only the electoral body partially set up.

The Global Political Agreement (GPA) was signed by the country’s three political parties, Zanu PF, the Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai (MDC-T), and the Movement for Democratic Change- Mutambara (MDC-M) in 2008. President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF has refused to implement some of the GPA reforms until sanctions imposed on its officials by European and western countries are lifted.

But SADC insists that these reforms need to be implemented by August and that there should be “a conducive environment to holding of elections that will be free and fair under conditions of a level political field.”

The SADC summit comes on the back of serious moves by Mugabe to push for early elections despite objections from his political partners in the coalition government. Many feel that if Mugabe succeeds and holds early elections they will be held in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.

Civic groups are also opposed to a hasty election and want it deferred until all the necessary political reforms are fulfilled. Even South African mediators have publicly stated that it will be impossible to hold elections this year.

But some observers have questioned whether SADC has the willpower to decisively deal with the long- drawn political crisis in Zimbabwe.

“SADC has persistently been reluctant to resolve the critical issues resulting from Mugabe and Zanu PF’s reluctance to share power equally with the MDC and there is nothing on the ground to indicate that this will change,” University of Zimbabwe political analyst John Makumbe told IPS.

A report released in April by Zimbabwe’s conflict mechanism body, the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) accuses all the country’s political parties of having a hand in inter- party violence incidents in the country.

The regional appointed facilitator, South African President Jacob Zuma, expressed concern on the continuing violence in Zimbabwe. In his report to the SADC Organ Troika meeting held in Livingstone, Zambia in March, he warned that if not dealt with, the continuing violence had the potential to plunge the region into a crisis similar to the political uprisings in North Africa and the Arab world.

However, SADC, in a significant move proposed to follow through its directives with the appointment of its own representatives to monitor violence in Zimbabwe. The three representatives will work closely with the JOMIC.

The JOMIC functions have been heavily affected by lack of funds but will now receive financial support from SADC. This will allow it to carry out independent investigations into reports of violence in the country as opposed to receiving reports from political parties.

Reacting to the outcome of the summit, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CiZC), a Zimbabwe pressure group working to promote democracy, told IPS that while it welcomes the summit decisions it remains doubtful whether they will be implemented.

“While they have said the right things, the challenge remains that of implementation. The communiqué did not address time-lines in concrete terms. It did not address measures to be taken by SADC in the event of non-compliance,” Dewa Mavhinga CiZC regional coordinator said.

“The team to work with JOMIC is a significant development, depending on their specific terms of reference. We would have wanted a clear indication that progress should be reviewed at the August Summit in Angola. From this communiqué it is inconceivable that elections will be held in 2011.”

Amnesty International Zimbabwe researcher, Simeon Mawanza said SADC must ensure that the agreed reforms are allowed time to take root.

“To hold an election 2011, as Zanu PF is arguing, will be intimidating (to) people. We need to allow the reforms that will be agreed on in the roadmap to take effect to cool down tensions in the country and to assure the people, particularly those in the rural areas, that they will not be exposed to the high levels of violence that they were exposed to in 2008,” said Mawanza.

By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Mar 30 2011 (IPS)

Kindness Paradza has a mission. After he lost his job as a journalist when the ZANU-PF government closed his newspaper in 2004, he ploughed his life savings into a 2,000 ha farm he received as part of Zimbabwe’s controversial “land reform programme”.

(l-r) Farm manager Brian Ngwenya with farm owner Kindness Paradza. Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

The launch of the new commodity exchange could have come as a boon for him, as he now has more room to negotiate better prices. Previously this space for negotiation did not exist as the state-owned Grain Marketing Board (GMB) was the sole buyer of grain.

However, Paradza, like many new farmers, is not celebrating the arrival of the Commodity Exchange of Zimbabwe (COMEZ).

Although it has been promoted as a mechanism to minimise exploitation of farmers by agricultural buyers and usher in orderly trading of commodities, while creating opportunities for farmers to get better prices, Paradza remains sceptical.

“We don’t know it and, surely, how does something that you don’t know help you?” Paradza asks rhetorically.

COMEZ is a commodities market; commodities markets across the world trade in agricultural products such as wheat, barley, sugar, maize and cotton, with contracts based on them.

These contracts can include futures. A simplified example would be: a maize farmer can sell a futures contract on her maize, which will not be harvested for several months, and guarantee the price to be paid at the time of delivery.

The futures contract is bought with a guarantee that the price will not go up when it is delivered. This protects the farmer from price drops and the buyer from price rises. COMEZ will initially trade grains, cereals and oil seeds.

According to the ministry of industry and commerce, COMEZ is meant to “provide fair and open prices” for agricultural produce as reflected on the market.

The minister of industry and commerce, Welshman Ncube, told IPS at the launch of COMEZ two months ago that it would serve as a mechanism to break the state monopoly in the grain trade.

“We should create a transparent, open and accessible commodities market where both buyers and sellers can participate, knowing the prevailing prices,” Ncube said.

In the last 10 years, the Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) determined the prices of agricultural produce, while GMB was designated as the sole buyer of grain. AMA is the regulator of grain pricing in Zimbabwe.

Tafadzwa Musarara, president of the Zimbabwe Grain Millers’ Association, welcomes COMEZ but says it should be organised in line with international standards for it to work properly.

“It is welcome in the sense that the contracts that farmers will enter into with grain traders and other buyers will give them bankable papers which they can use to capitalise their operations, rather than working on a cash basis as is the case right now,” Musarara told IPS.

“Nevertheless, it is important that we come up with structures that are in line with international practice in order to attract foreign buyers.”

Most farmers still do not understand what exactly COMEZ does and why it was established. They would prefer to see how it practically works before committing any of their produce.

Paradza complains that, “we know that it is not going to work in our favour because of the commissions that we will be asked to pay at the warehouse, auctions and traders — just like they do at the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. The traders will sell on our behalf and it is those traders who will make money”.

Alice Machingauta, a Chihota farmer, told IPS while delivering her tobacco crop that, “I haven’t heard about it but if there are merchants involved then I don’t want it because the merchants are only there to reap what they did not sow”.

Grain trader and economist Tinashe Mawarire told IPS that COMEZ suffers from the fear of the unknown.

“Farmers are used to delivering their produce to GMB and waiting for the announcement of the price. The advantage with COMEZ is its willing-buyer- willing-seller arrangement, unlike in the past when everyone was compelled to sell to GMB only,” Mawarire points out.

“If you are not happy with the price, you don’t sell. It’s as easy as that.”

Analyst Brains Muchemwa cautions that, “farmers need to be educated on how COMEZ works and how they can get better prices”.

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Feb 7 2011 (IPS)

Zimbabwean activists will raise the issue of privatisation at the World Social Forum, taking place Feb 6-11 in Dakar, Senegal, and seek solidarity from other activists to resist a renewed government attempt at selling Zimbabwe’s state- owned enterprises.

The headquarters of the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority in Harare. Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

“We want mobilisation towards a new world order where governments consult citizens before mortgaging state property through privatisation. We seek international solidarity from social movements across the world in our fight against privatisation,” he added.

ZSF is a member of the Southern Africa Social Forum, a loose grouping of organisations working to promote social and economic rights in the region.

The Zimbabwean government has embarked on an ambitious privatisation programme, pitched as reviving loss-making enterprises that burden the national purse.

The country wants to turn around 10 struggling state enterprises by restructuring, commercialising or privatising them during 2011.

The targeted firms include the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ), fixed telephone operator Tel*One and mobile phone operator Net*One, AgriBank, the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM), Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), Air Zimbabwe and beef producer Cold Storage Company.

The Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company (ZISCO) has already been sold to an Indian company.

The unity government formed by political rivals ZANU-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change in 2009 is battling to fix an ailing economy.

State enterprises minister Gordon Moyo told IPS that the government is determined to change the fortunes of state-owned firms, many of them on their knees due to years of mismanagement.

“We are consulting with a view to implementing privatisation but we will use the best possible model to benefit the people of Zimbabwe,” Moyo told IPS. According to ministry of finance statistics, if properly managed, state-owned enterprises could contribute 40 percent of the poor southern Afrocan’s country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

For instance, when ZISCO operated at full capacity in the 1990s it contributed 10 percent of GDP.

But opponents of the programme say privatisation prejudices citizens who are already suffering due to high costs and inadequate public services.

“To expect to make billions out of services that are supposed to serve the populace is unfair as they are the ones who have to pay for such service provision,” Hopewell Gumbo, a Harare-based activist who works with the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD), told IPS.

“Selling to the private sector means a loss of state control. Resources could be used for whatever purpose,” he argued. ZIMCODD is an organisation that works to promote social and economic rights.

Giving an example, Gumbo said a company like the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) might after privatisation decide to sell electricity to a richer neighbouring country for a profit, leaving Zimbabweans literally in the dark. South Africa has struggled with power outages in recent years.

Masimba Kuchera, who works with the Students’ Solidarity Trust (SST), a tertiary education pressure group, told IPS that privatisation is not entirely detrimental but should not be implemented in areas that are vital to people’s daily survival.

“By its nature privatisation is about re-orienting companies to make a profit, so it must be confined to those areas that do not have to do with people’s survival,” Kuchera said. “Services such as water, electricity, health and education should not be privatised.”

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions’ (ZCTU) secretary general Wellington Chibhebhe told IPS that, “privatisation is concerned with maximising profits ahead of human needs, rights and interests”.

ZCTU believes privatisation will result in massive exploitation, considering that most of state-owned companies hold monopolies in their markets. Chibhebhe cited the problem of high tariffs charged for electricity, water and telephone services.

Economist Eric Bloch believes many of the concerns about privatisation are unfounded. “The competition and tariffs commission will address excessive pricing and contain it,” Bloch told IPS. However, the commission’s role remains very much that of a paper tiger.

Proponents maintain that failure of privatisation has largely to do with lack of political commitment, poor design, insufficient resources, weak management and corruption.

In the past privatisation in Zimbabwe has had mixed results. After the world prices of platinum, copper and tantalite fell in the late 1990s, three privatised mines closed and left behind ghost towns and thousands of workers without jobs.

However, a study done by the trade union-linked African Labour Research Network (ALRN), titled “Privatisation: African Experiences”, discovered successes following the privatisation of Dairibord Zimbabwe Limited (DZL).

DLZ managed to widen its product base and to launch other local and foreign investments in Malawi.

It achieved real growth in sales volumes and employment and earned foreign currency for the country. It also contributes to the development of small- scale dairy farms through a special scheme it finances.

But in neighbouring Zambia, privatisation resulted in job losses when state assets were sold. The ALRN study concluded that women workers are often the hardest hit by retrenchments that accompany privatisation.

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Nov 17 2010 (IPS)

The word “sanctions” was among the first five words mentioned to the new European Union (EU) ambassador to Zimbabwe Aldo Dell Ariccia when he first arrived and met with government officials in Zimbabwe a few months ago.

Biko Mutsaurwa: The wide effect of the sanctions is due to the endemic corruption among the political elite. Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

In 2002 the EU imposed targeted sanctions on President Robert Mugabe, members of his ZANU-PF party, armed forces, the police, judges, individuals and companies with links to the party and its officials. The sanctions were a direct response to the deterioration in the human rights and political climate in the country.

The terms of the sanctions include travel bans to EU territory, freezing of assets, an embargo on arms and related materials and a ban on equipment that might be used for internal repression.

Dell Ariccia describes the measures as “restrictions on ZANU-PF officials, their entities and those individuals and entities associated with them.

“The sanctions are not designed to hurt the ordinary people of Zimbabwe but those targeted and those who are close to political power. To demonstrate this fact the EU remains Zimbabwe’s second biggest trade partner after South Africa,” Dell Ariccia points out.

To buttress his point he told IPS that the EU is funding an 18 million dollar project to support the recovery of the country’s important sugar sector. The EU also remains actively involved in several humanitarian projects in the country.

But economic historian Dr Tafataona Mahoso differs sharply from the EU envoy. “These sanctions are an economic war on the people of Zimbabwe. Lives of people have been devalued and pushed back to 1953 levels,” said Mahoso.

He regards the sanctions as a Trojan horse employed against the people of Zimbabwe.

Mahoso cites the example of millions of Zimbabweans who migrated to neighbouring countries and western capitals where they were forced to take up menial jobs that they would not have accepted back home. This is an effect of the sanctions.

“We have witnessed the loss of pensions and of dignity, which explains why this is a war. It affects everyone in its path,” he says.

In outlining how the country’s economy has been affected by the sanctions, Mahoso explains that Zimbabwean companies are not able to source equipment from abroad because they cannot access lines of credit. The country’s government is struggling to provide basic services because it is forced to operate a cash economy.

“A sanctioned economy produces a sanctioned people. The economy is like a river and whoever decides to impose sanctions on a country is like putting poison in that river and anyone who depends on that river is affected,” believes Mahoso.

But Mahoso’s view is not necessarily the dominant one among Zimbabweans.

“There are no sanctions on the economy of Zimbabwe and its people by the EU and other western countries,” argues Okay Machisa, the director of Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights) in an interview with IPS.

“We know the real sanctions were imposed on the people of Zimbabwe in 2008 by a certain regime which barred us from enjoying freedom of expression and association with a political party of our choice,” he adds. ZimRights is a membership-based organisation that fights for citizens’ human rights.

It is widely believed that the presidential election results of 2008 were rigged to prevent an absolute victory for the Movement of Democratic Change’s Morgan Tsvangirai.

Biko Mutsaurwa, an artist, also holds a different opinion. He told IPS that the country’s economic woes have nothing to do with EU sanctions but are a direct result of poor economic policies.

“The crisis was triggered when the government was persuaded to adopt neo- liberal policies in the 1990s based on the recommendations of the international financial institutions,” says Mutsaurwa. The international financial institutions are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

“The fact that only 98 people and their companies are sanctioned and the effects are felt by the whole country tells of the corruption and plutocracy of the 98 people who control everything,” he argues.

But have the sanctions achieved their intended purpose of adding pressure on the political elite to return to democracy?

“There has been an impact on the people who are targeted. If not, they would not have launched this campaign for the removal of the sanctions,” says Dell Ariccia.

However, John Chimunhu, a freelance journalist, is of a different opinion: “Nothing much has changed, the repression goes on and the targeted people have transferred their loot to Hong Kong and are continuing looting here at home,” Chimunhu told IPS.

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Oct 18 2010 (IPS)

Zimbabwe’s debt burden of about 8.3 billion dollars, owed to internal and external institutions, is crowding out essential national budget items such as health and basic services, with detrimental effects for particularly women.

An activist's t-shirt displays the message of the ZIMCODD anti-debt campaign. Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

ZIMCODD is a coalition of organisations working on social and economic justice issues in the politically beleaguered southern African state. Its calculation of Zimbabwe’s debt as being 8,3 billion dollars includes interest costs.

Hospitals and clinics in Zimbabwe’s urban areas charge 250 and 50 dollars respectively in maternity fees. Delivering a baby at state hospitals with the help of a professional midwife costs 173 dollars.

Given that even civil servants mostly earn less than 200 dollars a month, the charges put health services out of reach for most citizens.

Says Tariro Chikwanha: “We cannot get AIDS drugs or drugs for opportunistic infections because they are too expensive.” Even the tests to determine whether an HIV-positive person should go on to antiretroviral drugs are out of reach, costing 10 dollars each at state hospitals.

Chikwanha, who has lived with HIV for 13 years, is increasingly worried about the inaccessibility of health services in Zimbabwe. She founded DREAMS, an organisation that works with youths who are living with HIV and AIDS or are affected by it.

“Because of the cost most people give up and wait for death at home,” explains Chikwanha.

She blames the country’s unsustainable debts levels for the dearth in state funds for public healthcare. The government has a so-called “social dimension fund” which is supposed to take care of these needs but it is virtually non-existent.

“Government debts are killing us as women. The government should stop getting more loans,” Chikwanha told IPS. “We have enough money to look after ourselves. We have diamonds, platinum and gold. They should sell these minerals and get us money to live a better life.”

The ZIMCODD ran an awareness campaign against debt and the international financial institutions (IFIs) that ended on Oct 17. The IFIs are the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

ZIMCODD estimates that, at current debt levels, each Zimbabwean owes the IFIs 525 dollars.

According to health ministry statistics, Zimbabwe spends only nine dollars in health fees per person per year. This level of spending is inadequate and the country will not achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at this rate.

The awareness campaign’s theme was “responsible lending and borrowing to guarantee people’s social and economic rights” and involved the launch of a “Citizens’ Guide to Debt”, theatre plays and a music concert.

“We are using these artistic expressions to help explain the issues of debt and how they affect citizens of Zimbabwe,” Dakarai Matanga, ZIMCODD executive director, told IPS.

A play entitled “No loans without us” was performed in Harare, making the connections between national debt and people’s lives and emphasising that the government should consult citizens before taking on loans.

According to the Harare Residents’ Alliance, the channelling of state money to debt repayment means the diversion of money away from basic services such as water. Residents are thus forced to buy water.

Anilia Masaraure, representing the Alternative Business Association (APA), decries women having to work harder because of the perennial lack of water and electricity.

“Women have to spend more time looking for firewood and water instead of operating their market stalls and businesses to earn an extra dollar to fight poverty in their families,” Masaraure told IPS. APA is a group of small business enterprises operated by women.

Lovemore Matombo, president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, told IPS that African countries should not repay debt owed to the Washington-based IMF and World Bank.

“In western countries buses and trams move around, transporting two or five people. They can afford to do so because tax is used effectively and transport is subsidised by governments. But when they (westerners) come to Africa they tell us to privatise,” argues Matombo.

“They are not doing in Africa what they are doing in their own countries. These (IFIs) are criminal institutions. The debt must not be paid. Paying such debt is like throwing money in a latrine,” adds Matombo.

ZIMCODD’s position is that African countries should reject loans that come with conditionalities. It also demands that African governments practise responsible borrowing that is transparent, accountable and channelled towards production rather than consumption.

Furthermore ZIMCODD says parliament and civil society should participate meaningfully in government decisions about loans.

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Oct 13 2010 (IPS)

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has set ambitious targets for regional integration. But the goal of creating a customs union by 2010 has been postponed and the adoption of a single regional currency by 2018 may be missed due to national concerns.

At its formation in 1980, SADC set out to create a regional community based on the progressive elimination of obstacles to free movement of capital and labour and goods and services.

SADC states agreed to the formation of a SADC free trade area (FTA) in 2008 at a meeting held in Johannesburg, South Africa. The SADC FTA would create a regional market worth 360 billion dollars with a total population of 170 million people.

The agreement included establishing a customs union by 2010, a common market by 2015, monetary union by 2016 and a regional central bank and a single currency by 2018.

Proponents of the single currency believe the move will remove regional constraints to the promotion of economic growth, investment and infrastructural development.

Showers Mawowa, a doctoral candidate at the University of KwaZulu Natal in Durban, South Africa, believes regional integration and a single currency will help bring financial and economic stability to the region.

“This will bring regional financial prudence, especially to countries such as Zimbabwe,” Mawowa told IPS.

To achieve a single currency and a common monetary area, SADC countries were required to reduce their budget deficits to five percent of gross domestic product and bring inflation down to below 10 percent. Many are on track.

But rising food prices and the global financial crisis have pushed the timeline targets out of reach for most countries in the region. Also, by August only 11 out of 15 member states had joined the protocol establishing the FTA.

A high-level expert team has to report back by Dec 2011 on ways to improve progress with the customs union.

A meeting of the region’s central bank governors in Zimbabwe’s capital of Harare at the beginning of October did not reveal much in the way of movement on the outstanding issues.

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono reiterated that the adoption of a single currency would eliminate distortions associated with exchange rate movements and facilitate intra-regional trade and cross border investment.

He also confirmed that “the adoption of a single currency by 2018 will largely depend on the expeditious establishment of a customs union, which is currently lagging behind” schedule.

One of the reasons for the delays is fear that a single currency will tilt the balance in trade and investment in favour of bigger regional economies, such as South Africa’s.

Nairobi-based economic and social activist Thomas Deve is of the view that the adoption of a single currency by 2018 is still possible but “governments parochially use national sovereignty as an excuse for not moving fast”.

“All it needs is for the people concerned to come up with monetary codes, harmonise macro-economic fundamentals and subject national currencies to regional ones,” Deve continued. He gave the example of the use of a common currency in West Africa that makes it easy to transact throughout the region. “The central bank governors should help provide technical assistance to make this possible,” said Deve.

Mawowa differed from Deve, arguing that there “is political will but the fear is that integration should not be rushed because of the economic unevenness in southern Africa”.

Integration under the current set-up will no doubt benefit South Africa because it will reduce its transaction costs and increase the trade balance in its favour. He said the region should draw lessons from the European Union and insist on particular financial standards as a condition for joining.

Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Arthur Mutambara, an ardent supporter of regional integration, confirmed what Deve said. He told IPS that there is a need to cede some political and economic sovereignty for the dream to come true.

“We should come together as a region to safeguard our political and economic interests. We don’t want aid or donations but workable regional collaborations. Let’s concentrate on that which binds us together, rather than that which divides us,” Mutambara told IPS.

But Zimbabwean economic analyst Alec Chiswa, working on regional integration issues, expressed skepticism: “SADC countries are growing at different speeds and every country puts its own interests ahead of regional targets. That creates endless delays.

“The other problem is that of membership to multiple regional economic blocs. Member states have to revisit some of their obligations to other regional economic communities before committing themselves to this.”

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda
JOHANNESBURG, Sep 24 2010 (IPS)

Many African countries struggle with debt and finding money for national budgets because they fail to recognise taxation as a sustainable source of funding. Moreover, multinational companies are too easily given tax breaks while siphoning off money through illegal tax evasion.

Taxation plays an important role in determining the distribution of benefits to citizens. It also acts as a connection between state and citizenry.

But, “there is no mobilisation of national resources for national development in African countries, which is why we are seeing agitation among ordinary people”, Percy Makombe, programme manager at the Cape Town-based Economic Justice Network (EJN), told IPS. EJN is a project of the Fellowship of Christian Councils of Southern Africa (Foccisa).

Attention to the tax issue has generally been lacking.

“History proves that no country will march out of poverty through aid but effective local resource mobilisation can aid development of African countries,” declares Alvin Mosioma, coordinator of the Tax Justice Network – Africa based in Nairobi.

The politically independent Tax Justice Network was launched in Britain and does research and advocacy on taxation.

It co-hosted a roundtable discussion in Johannesburg on Sep 14-15 with the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (Afrodad) and the Institute for Democracy in Africa (Idasa) to discuss ways of using tax as an instrument to reduce Africa’s dependence on aid as a tool for development.

Idasa is an independent, non-profit public interest organisation based in South Africa while Afrodad, as a civil society organisation with several member organisations across the region, seeks solutions to Africa’s debt problem.

The majority of African governments spend large percentages of their annual budgets paying off debts while big foreign companies take money out of their countries through tax breaks or illegal tax evasion.

Multinational companies are also not properly taxed due to the lack of capacity of African authorities to put in place tax systems.

According to Christian Aid figures, the Democratic Republic of Congo received a mere 86,000 dollars from mineral rights in 2006 while Tanzania lost at least 265,5 million dollars in recent years as a result of an excessively low royalty rate.

A 2008 Christian Aid report, titled “Death and Taxes: The True Toll of Tax Dodging”, states that illegal tax evasion deprives least developed countries (LDCs) of 160 billion dollars a year. British-based Christian Aid works towards the eradication of poverty.

“The failure by multinational companies to declare profits translates into capital flight. Moreover, companies in the extractive industries enjoy far too many benefits through unnecessary tax reliefs,” argues Obert Gutu, a Zimbabwean parliamentarian.

“When a government relies on the resources of its donors it is less responsive to citizens,” Gutu adds.

Christian Aid defines capital flight as the unrecorded and untaxed illicit leakage of capital and resources out of a country. Dr Dereje Alemayehu, manager at Christian Aid East Africa, told IPS that many LDCs lose revenue due to capital flight caused by big western firms.

Alemayehu says this happens in different ways. First, through falsified invoicing, or the inflating or undervaluing of prices to increase costs and diminish tax liability.

Second, through transfer mispricing, a phenomenon in which companies sell to each other at inflated prices, inflating costs in intra-corporate financial transactions.

Third, through “round-tripping” where companies operating in a country send their money offshore and bring it back as “foreign investment” to get preferential tax treatment.

According to Malawi’s ministry of finance, the country lost 125 million dollars in tax allowances in 2008-2009 alone. The amount equals what the government spends annually on its national grain subsidy, which has over the years helped Malawi maintain a grain surplus.

“Multinationals come to invest in African countries on the back of so many investment incentives that are packed into our tax regimes,” Benjamin Chikusa, a Malawian parliamentarian, told IPS.

Malawi offers as much as a 100 percent investment allowance on qualifying expenditure for new buildings and machinery; an allowance of up to 40 percent for used buildings and machinery; and a 50 percent allowance for qualifying training costs.

Manufacturing companies can deduct all operating expenses incurred up to 25 months prior to the start of operations in Malawi and pay zero duty on raw materials used in manufacturing.

Many countries offer such incentives in anticipation of returns through personal income tax, foreign exchange earnings and employment. But to what extent do such benefits accrue in reality?

“Most of the employment benefits come in the form of low-paid jobs at a level where income taxes do not recover what has been lost through tax allowances,” says Chikusa.

Experts recommend that African countries design effective tax systems that allow them to track tax evaders beyond their borders; and that parliaments play a stronger oversight role when it comes to taxation.

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda
JOHANNESBURG, Sep 23 2010 (IPS)

While investors need assurances about property rights and the protection of investments before they will invest in Zimbabwe’s precarious economy, the state of democracy in the Southern African country should also be a consideration.

"Investment and trade should also depend on the extent of democratisation in Zimbabwe." Credit: Nastasya Tay/IPS

Human rights violations and land grabbing shattered Zimbabwe’s democracy and economy during the past decade as a result of President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party’s rejection of democratic process.

Amidst extra-legal killings, detentions, torture and mass displacement of people, the Zimbabwean dollar crashed, shop shelves emptied and the country registered one of the world’s worst peacetime inflation rates.

A power-sharing deal between ZANU-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) restored relative political stability and led to the dollarisation of the economy. The country has since exhibited some signs of recovery, both democratically and economically.

Prime minister and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai sought to assure investors in highly emotive language at the summit that his country had turned a corner.

“We chose progress over violence, polarisation, decline and decay. Zimbabwe is moving forward from the darkness of madness and self-destruction to a new dawn,” he said at the summit, held on Sep 16 in Johannesburg, South Africa, and hosted by the international business magazine “The Economist”.

“The Economist” news editor Adam Roberts argued that signs of renewed interest in the country could be noticed but that it remained unclear whether the recovery could be sustained.

“For the first time in a long while you have investors seriously considering if this is the moment to invest in Zimbabwe and you have Zimbabweans in the diaspora contemplating if this is the time to return,” Roberts said.

“But many serious tests are yet to be passed, and the diaspora, investors, donors and others need a great deal more assurances,” he added.

Johannesburg-based Zimbabwean businessperson Chris Goromonzi told IPS that, “it is time Zimbabwe creates opportunities and conditions for companies to do business. This involves conducive legislation that protects investment.”

German ambassador to Zimbabwe Albrecht Conze acknowledged that progress was being registered but said change was “millimetre-ing” forward and that real progress was possible only once a new constitution that guaranteed private property was agreed.

White commercial farmers’ representatives warned that legal disputes and claims for substantial compensation for expropriated land could not be wished away.

“The most important thing is to address issues of property rights and rights of the individual. The fact that farmers who lost their land have not been compensated should serve as a warning to would-be investors,” John Worsley-Worswick from the Justice for Agriculture farmers’ lobby group told IPS.

Concern was also raised over government plans for “indigenisation” — transferring majority ownership of companies to black Zimbabweans — which are seen in some quarters as an attempt by Mugabe to expropriate businesses for his allies.

Tsvangirai said that the indigenisation measures are being amended to take investors’ concerns into account.

Zimbabwean minister of economic planning and investment promotion Tapiwa Mashakada said that the government was working at reducing red tape that made it difficult to do business and to put in place the necessary legislation to protect investments.

“We are working on an investment protection bill so that we can lay down the guarantees for and obligations of investors,” Mashakada told IPS.

But Zimbabwean businessperson Tawanda Nyambirai told IPS that foreign investors should use their businesses to help democratise Zimbabwe. “The consideration should be human rights, whether political, social or economic,” said Nyambirai.

“They have to ask themselves whether they are investing in Robert Mugabe or in Zimbabwe. Investment should be a strategy that encourages democratisation,” said Nyambirai.

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda
JOHANNESBURG, Jul 7 2010 (IPS)

The Mozambican government has adopted various policies to address the effects of climate change, with special attention to women as studies show that they are more adversely affected by this phenomenon.

The south-east African country, with its coastline of 2,700 km stretching along the Indian Ocean, has increasingly been subjected to environmental disasters over the past decade.

The government’s policies aim to reduce the number of victims and the loss of property; developing a culture of disaster prevention; and developing the means to mitigate and prevent disasters. It also aims to boost environmental management. The policies have a particular gender focus.

One such policy is the ministry for coordination of the environment’s national adaptation programme of action (NAPA), developed as part of the United Nations (UN) initiative to assist least developed countries in coping with climate change.

Projects are prioritised that will assist Mozambique in buffering itself against adverse environmental effects. These projects are recommended for funding under the Global Environment Facility of the UN.

“Most women, about 73 percent, work the land in Mozambique and are therefore hard hit by the effects of climate change,” according to William Antonio Ndlovu, programme officer with the Maputo-based Diakonia Mozambique, in an interview with IPS. He stressed that more should be done to assist women.

Diakonia Mozambique is a Christian development organisation working towards sustainable improvement in the living conditions of vulnerable people.

Julio Fernando of the Christian Council of Mozambique told IPS that the effects of climate change represent a growing threat to livelihoods in his country. “Many Mozambicans are at risk but women are affected more. This is mainly because of poor responsive measures,” said Fernando.

The Christian Council of Mozambique is part of a network of faith-based organisations working on socio-economic issues, among others.

Research by the Cape Town-based office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation Southern Africa confirms that “women and men are differently impacted upon by climate changes due to current power relations and their differentiated roles in these communities,” as Dr. Natasha Ribeiro, researcher of the study, put it in the report, titled “Gender and Climate Change: Mozambique Case Study”.

The foundation is associated with the German Green Party.

The reasons are that, “women have access to but not control over natural resources and other property rights. Additionally, women do most of the reproductive and part of the productive work, while men are only responsible for productive work”.

The study, published earlier in 2010, was conducted in the Gaza province located in the south of the country. It focused on the Mapai Ngale, a community vulnerable to droughts, and Magondzwene, vulnerable to floods since the year 2000.

It was found that droughts, strong winds and environmental degradation have caused women and men to spend more time working in agriculture to gain the same or lower yields than in previous years.

According to the report, communities are forced to change their way of life with women taking up more productive work as successive droughts over the past eight years caused men to look for jobs elsewhere. Women now work in alcohol brewing and selling as well as in fisheries.

This results in an increased burden on women who still look after the children, do domestic work and care for people living with AIDS and tuberculosis. Men still do not engage in reproductive work.

Men’s migration has enhanced women’s participation in decision-making structures as they are drawn into such structures to fill the gaps left by the migrating men.

Adaptation also involves finding alternative food sources and cultivating dry season’s vegetables, such as pumpkin, lettuce and tomatoes, all year round.

The study recommends that, due to women’s key role in communities, they always be considered as the priority group in any activity planned to ameliorate the effects of climate change. Special attention should be paid to women’s representation in decision-making structures and to capacity building in agriculture as women predominate in this sector.

A CARE International report on climate change similarly concluded in 2006 that climate change has the most impact on women in countries such as Zimbabwe, Malawi, Swaziland and Zambia. “As the main natural resource managers, the adverse effects of climate change are likely to be felt disproportionately by women,” the CARE report concluded. CARE is an international relief organisation.

According to a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) developed by the Mozambican government in 2006, the country is unlikely to meet the millennium development goals (MDGs) due to the effects of climate change. This is further made worse by the extreme poverty that already exists in Mozambique.

The country has also tried to integrate climate concerns in its Agenda 2025 programme, essentially a development programme that the government of Mozambique aims to actualise by the year 2025.

It also developed a gender strategy for the agrarian sector. The strategy aims at creating equal access to resources and opportunities between men and women. In addition it urges the implementation of programmes for diversification of subsistence crops and access to improved technologies, including agro-processing, in response to climate change.

The Böll study praises NAPA and the agrarian strategy as solid instruments but say that they still need to be implemented.

Excerpt:

Saddled with debts of more than $7 billion, Zimbabwe is anxious to resume diamond exports, suspended in May amidst international condemnation of alleged human rights violations in the Marange diamond fields. But the treatment of people living in the fields themselves suggests the country’s record on rights bears further examination.

A Jun. 21-23 meeting of the Kimberley Process, the diamond industry’s monitoring organisation, failed to reach consensus on whether Zimbabwe’s diamonds should be certified as conflict-free. Even before the Tel Aviv meeting concluded, Zimbabwe had announced it intended to resume exports of the precious stones.

Following discovery of diamonds in 2006, thousands flocked to the Marange diamond fields around Chiadzwa, 300 kilometres east of the Zimbabwean capital Harare, to dig for diamonds: herders and house girls turned into overnight millionaires.

Government shut the bonanza down in October 2008, but villagers are fighting against relocation to make way for commercial mining.

Diamonds a town’s best friend

“I have a fleet of taxis operating in Mutare,” says Sebastian Maguda, a teacher at Chakohwa Primary School. “I made money and now I am a businessman. But I keep my job as a teacher in case the police decide to hunt down those of us who made our money from diamond panning.”

The Chiadzwa area is studded with ostentatious palaces built by locals who profited from the boom time, satellite dishes look up to the skies, powerful generators growl in the yards while top-of-the-range cars belonging to successful traders roar down the gravel roads.

But the diamond rush was not an unmixed blessing. A female trader at the Chakohwa business centre who preferred not to give her name said, “The illegal diamond dealers helped change our lives in a big way. They offered to buy everything from water and food to sex.”

Newman Chiadzwa, an influential figure in the area, agrees. “There were many vices that were imported to this area together with the illegal diamond dealers who came from many parts of the country. People moved around villages stealing goats and chickens. They used to stay in the mountains, cutting down trees, putting up fires everywhere and this turned out to be bad for the community.

“Our women were even afraid to go and fetch firewood in the bush because of the many incidents of rape,” Chiadzwa says. “Prostitution thrived under the circumstances because many sex workers from around Zimbabwe flooded Marange in search of diamond money.”

The government of Zimbabwe sent army and security details to Marange in October 2008 to clear the area in an operation widely condemned for its disregard of human rights. The security forces are alleged to have committed murder, rape and press-ganged young children and women into forced labour.

Taming the diamond fields

The government wants to resettle roughly 1,800 households to elsewhere in the Odzi river basin to clear the way for full-scale mining. The villagers have vowed that they will only move after being compensated to their satisfaction.

Mbada Mining Private Limited is one of a handful of companies already operating in the Marange fields. The company is a joint venture between the government’s Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation and a little-known South African company, Core Mining.

“We have undertaken a massive housing project and crop input scheme for the relocated families from Chiadzwa. Villagers who have had their farming period affected by the relocations would be provided with food aid. We are going to make sure that the villagers do not starve as we will be providing grain to the needy,” Mbada Diamonds chairman Robert Mhlanga told IPS.

“The government is yet to start relocating people to Odzi but we are still making arrangements, it’s not an overnight job,” says Elton Mangoma, Minister of Economic Planning and Investment Promotion. “There is still very little infrastructure that has been put in place and we feel we cannot just throw people away.

The government says it has completed building on 260 of the 900 plots to which the villagers are supposed to be relocated, and successfully sunk 10 of 18 planned boreholes while work on renovating schools and clinics in the area is in progress.

It has also promised to carry out a proper evaluation of the properties owned by the affected villagers so they can be fully compensated. The villagers have also been assured that they will get first preference in securing jobs created by the discovery of the diamonds.

Future not promising

But the commercial mining operations are highly mechanised, requiring only a fraction of the previous work force. The villagers also argue the relocation process is not being conducted in a transparent manner.

“There is no information about compensation. We don’t know how this so-called compensation will be calculated,” Chiadzwa told IPS. He also refuted government claims that the new site is being readied.

“Nothing has been built in Odzi, there are no proper pastures for our livestock, schools and clinics are very far away, the nearest clinic is about 10 kilometres away.”

The Chiadzwa Community Development Trust, formed by villagers to to defend their interests, accuses the companies of operating without conducting an environmental impact assessment. But the Harare High Court dismissed the Trust’s lawsuit on this matter in January.

At the Chakohwa bottle store, one villager told IPS, “Everyone had found something life-changing to do in diamond panning but now it’s back to square one. These companies hardly employ people from here. All their operations are highly mechanised, there is nothing left for us.”

By Stanley Kwenda
JOHANNESBURG, May 14 2010 (IPS)

The North should pay reparations to the South for the effects of climate change.

Michelle Pressend: "Poverty goes hand in hand with reliance on natural resources." Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

He told IPS that, “once a climate obligation debt is established, it’s a simple question of how the funds should be delivered”. Bond is director of the University of Kwazulu Natal’s Centre for Civic Society (CCS) in Durban, South Africa.

The CCS works with academics, researchers, civic society organisations and grassroots organisations to find solutions to societal problems.

Citing a pilot project where Germany is paying reparations to a community in Namibia, Bond said the reparations should be paid directly to women because they suffer the burden of looking after the family and therefore of climate change. Men often choose to squander whatever little money is left or made available to the family.

Under the pilot project, the German government is paying people living in a community in northern Namibia monthly allowances as compensation for the privations of the colonial period when Germany controlled the territory.

Bond’s view was echoed at the climate justice conference where he was speaking. It was hosted by the Economic Justice Network (EJN) of the Fellowship of Christian Councils in Southern Africa (FOCCISA) on May 5-6 in Johannesburg. The Christian Councils are church-based organisations that work in the southern African region to solve societal problems such as climate change.

EJN specifically works to further economic justice in Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries.

“We are experiencing unusual drop in crop yields in many LDCs in SADC which cannot be ascribed to anything other than climate change,” Mithika Mwenda, coordinator of the Nairobi-based Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), told IPS. PACJA works to promote sustainable development and environmental justice.

Another example is Mozambique which has suffered from either floods or periodic droughts caused by little rain since 2001. As a result, its government has been forced to spend money to bail out struggling citizens and to finance adaptation strategies rather than development initiatives.

“We can’t blame the governments because the shift away from, for example rain-fed agriculture, costs huge sums. That is where we call upon the international community which caused climate change to come to the party,” said Mwenda.

Regarding the recurring floods in Mozambique, Bond said, “we expect to see more of these. Shrinking coastlines cause the physical displacement of people, typically the poor and most vulnerable. In this case it would be women and peasant farmers (frequently the same people) who are on the frontline because they lack the capacity to adapt.”

In Zambia poor people face more than just the effects of climate change but also have to deal with a government in denial. “We are experiencing floods even in (the capital) Lusaka but the government has deaf ears. They claim that the floods are caused by bad drainage systems,” George Chibwana, advocacy officer of the Zambia Christian Council (ZCC), told IPS.

“In all this, women suffer the most because traditionally they are the ones who take care of the children, ensure that food is available and prepared for the family, till the land and are often the ones to gather firewood,” said Chibwana.

“Apart from this, cholera is on the rise and there is also a significant rise in malaria which has always been the number one killer disease in Zambia,” he added.

Christian Aid estimates that 182 million people in sub-Saharan African countries, where three quarters of the world’s LDCs are located, could die of diseases directly attributable to climate change by the end of this century.

In Zimbabwe, a country which has registered negative economic growth for the past 10 years, effects of climate change are a new threat to an otherwise overburdened population. For the past five years, the country’s low-lying areas, such as the Lowveld, Zambezi Valley, Muzarabani and those areas close to Mozambique, have witnessed recurring floods.

This has forced many communities to move to higher ground and then losing their pastoral and agricultural land and assets in the form of livestock and crops.

Recent events in the SADC region, such as poor rains, have resulted in low yield harvests in countries such as Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Michelle Pressend, coordinator of the Cape Town-based Trade Strategy Group (TSG), explained to IPS that “poverty goes hand in hand with reliance on natural resources, which are often depleted by climate change effects.” The TSG is an informal network of trade activists interested in developing strategies for orienting trade towards sustainable development.

According to a PACJA’s 2009 climate change report, titled “The Economic Cost of Climate Change in Africa”, climate change will combine with social, economic and environmental factors to exacerbate Africa’s vulnerabilities in the future, including water, food security, diseases, conflict and degradation of natural resources.

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda
KIGALI, Mar 17 2010 (IPS)

On average women constitute 18.8 percent of representatives in parliaments across the world according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). This gender imbalance has been subject to much feminist criticism and many campaigns for change have been staged to address the status quo. The situation is however different in Rwanda.

Victoire Ingabire declared her interest in the country's top political job. Credit: www.victoire2010.com

Rwandan women achieved this impressive figure in parliament by taking an active role in the country’s reconstruction and lobbying heavily for a constitutional quota for women in the lower house of parliament. They were also able to push for the creation of a government ministry of women’s affairs to promote policies in favour of women’s interests.

It came as no surprise then when Victoire Ingabire came back home in January 2010 after 16 years in exile in the Netherlands and immediately declared her interest in the country’s top political job.

“My objective is to introduce Rwanda to the rule of law and a constitutional state where international democratic standards are respected, where nationalism will at last be the cornerstone for all public institutions,” she told IPS.

Ingabire, a Hutu, was born on 3 October 1968 in Kibilira in western Rwanda. She is the Chairperson of the Unified Democratic Forces (UDF) a coalition of Rwandan opposition parties with members in Rwanda, Europe, United States of America and in Canada. She has been elected by her party as the official candidate for the next presidential election in Rwanda come August 2010.

With Rwanda’s recent history, having a female in the top leadership position may not seem such a strange idea to Rwandan voters. Not only do women dominate parliament, but there are several women heading key ministries in the current government. The country has had a female Prime Minister in the past. Agathe Uwilingiyimana headed a transitional government as caretaker leader for less than a year before her assassination in April 1994.

However, Ingabire is of the view that despite the numbers, women in politics in her country are still far from making a political difference.

“There is no women’s empowerment. It is all fiction. What matters is not the number, but the share of power that is given to them. There is still a long way to go in translating women’s nominal weight into effective decision making share,” said Ingabire.

It is one reason why she wants to contest the election. “Women’s political weight is yet to be seen. I am not interested in cosmetic changes whereby women are nominated for propaganda motives. I want to see women’s fingerprints in all sectors of the society,” she told IPS. “Mine should not be a mere women ticket but one which will make a difference.”

A controversial figure, upon her return from exile Ingabire called for justice not only for Tutsis murdered in the genocide but also for the Hutus who were affected. She says the intimidation she has experienced at the hands of suspected state security agents during her campaign are testimony that female participation in the country’s politics is not a naturally embraced phenomenon.

Yaliwe Clarke a lecturer with the University of Cape Town based Africa Gender Institute, also cautioned on the need to look beyond numbers, “It has been predicted that if you have a critical mass of women in power then things can change.”

She however said it was not automatic that all the women elected believe in gender equality, “Will they address issues to do with gender-based violence, for instance?” she asked.

Meanwhile women from other countries in transition are looking to Rwanda for lessons on how to achieve parity in politics and decision-making. Beater Nyamupinga, the Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Women’s Parliamentary Caucus believes Rwanda can proffer women in her country a number of lessons in enforcing gender equality in the constitution. Zimbabwe is currently going through a constitution making process in line with the Global Political Agreement signed by the three main political rivals following elections marked by violence in 2008.

“We simply need to put up mechanisms that respond to the needs of women. Rwandan women taught us how to push for proportional representation in all spheres of life through the electoral systems which should guarantee women an equal quota,” said Nyamupinga.

Ingabire admits that taking a shot at the presidency, currently occupied by Paul Kagame of ruling the Rwanda Patriotic Front, which has steered the country on a growth path since 1994, is a herculean task. But she remains hopeful.

Among issues she has used to attract voters has been her call for the creation of a Committee on Truth, Justice and Reconciliation to help Rwandans towards a true reconciliation. She also promised to introduce a non-political commission in charge of rewriting and interpretation of the actual history of Rwanda as well as the passing of a bill for the right to private ownership and for protection of the poor citizens that guarantee equality before the law.

“My chances of winning the top job depend on the will of the people to bring a new wave of change in governance, in terms of transparency, justice for all, reconciliation, and good neighbourliness. I will win because people want to move from a post war political management to fully fledged democracy,” said Ingabire.

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Jan 28 2010 (IPS)

The same kind of worldwide solidarity that helped bring down apartheid is necessary to free the global South from economic domination.

Dakarayi Matanga: 'The WSF is of crucial importance to an African population suffering the impacts of the global financial crisis.' Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

Global apartheid refers to the divergence in the economic and social development of a white North in the industrialised world and a brown South in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Compared to Latin America, Matanga says, Africa has not seen large-scale mobilisation against neoliberal policy. These are policies that stress the private over the public sector, for example reducing trade barriers, minimising regulation and cutting social services by the state; the idea being that this will create economic growth and more efficient government.

A series of World Social Forum activities throughout 2010 and the global meeting taking place in Dakar, Senegal in 2011 will help Africa’s social movements to better connect to the global demand for alternatives.

Q: Leaders from the South – from trade unions, social movement and other civil society – are meeting in Brazil this week to reflect on ten years of the World Social Forum. Several prominent Latin American heads of state will be present, but not a single leader from Africa is attending. A: Apart from political posturing, the African government leaders are more neo-liberal than their Latin American counterparts.  The forum is therefore “none of their business”.

Q: What opportunity is presented by the return of the World Social Forum to Africa, in the form of a series of thematic meetings in 2010 and culminating in a global forum to be held in Dakar in January 2011? A: The World Social Forum has developed into arguably the major trans-movement world gathering. It brings together thousands of social movements, NGOs, trade unions, self-help and advocacy groups from a majority of the world’s countries.

The WSF in Dakar will be the second major one in Africa, and thus an important step towards integrating African movements and NGOs into the transnational network against neo-liberalism, imperialism, fundamentalism, war and other anti-human elements of the present global financial crisis. 

It will be of importance in Africa since the population of this continent suffers intensely the impacts of the crisis.

The WSF will present opportunity for Africa to reflect and rededicate time to fighting the immense poverty that’s gripping the continent.

Q: What needs to be done to prepare the ground and take full advantage between now and then? A: The Forum has been seen by a lot of people as an annual reunion, a time to swap stories and reconnect with old friends. There are five widely-held critiques of the WSF and the forum process.

First, that it is too large, incoherent, and more of a carnival, than a space for serious engagement in ideas, strategizing and mobilising; there are too many fora, and too little time in between for action.

The forum’s governance and accountability structures are weak and largely undemocratic, and the emergence of local fora is undervalued by the leaders of these structures.

The forum is too inclusive of forces that themselves are products of the neo-liberal project – for example, large establishment-oriented NGOs, big foundations, and inter-governmental bodies.

Finally, little is done to include dynamic social movement actors that do not yet have traditional organisation.

These issues need to be addressed in preparation for Dakar 2011. Publicity work in Africa needs to be stepped up through local actions and community mobilisation. National and Regional coordination needs to be galvanised as well.

Q: How do these meetings concretely help grassroots social movements, for example the Zimbabwe Social Forum? A: I have been involved in the WSF process for six years now. I have been in most of the world forums. With this accumulated experience, I can testify about the importance of the Social Forums process to the social movements and the grassroots in Zimbabwe.

The main achievement of the process was to build a very large and open space for political exchange between social movements and NGOs.

Many social movements have drawn inspiration from the “spiritual” mood characteristic of the WSF events.

Arguably, the presence of the forum in Dakar will afford a better opportunity for Africans to attend, as opposed to one located in Latin America.

Q: What are the most important questions facing social movements in Southern Africa at the moment? A: Entrenched neo-liberalism, dictatorship, undercover imperial interests, conflict (ethnic, but foreign motivated) and the hegemony of right wing resurgence.

Q: Most Southern African countries are faced by a huge foreign debt burden which retards development. What alternative has the Southern African Social Forum been proposing/exploring? Is there a way out of this social catastrophe? A: Cancel the debt. Audit the debt to isolate the odious (odious debt is where loans have been diverted by corrupt leadership, leaving the population to repay money from which they have seen no benefit), intensify the fight against local dictatorships, broaden the anti-neoliberal movement and develop lending and development systems that belong to the South (the Bank of the South proposed by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund is an example).

Q: Where are ordinary people located in this whole framework? A: The participation in the Dakar WSF by local populations and African people in general will be impacted in 2011 mainly because of the withdrawal of funding partners who have been affected by the global financial crisis. Various obstacles, financial – high registration fees – or logistical – translation – or simply the cost of airfare will make the attendance of participants problematic.

Q:  How can challenges in linking the interdependence between global and local actions be overcome?   A: The Social Forum process is a viable attempt to link the global and the local. Vigorous local mobilisation and exchange of human and material resources. Widening the use of e-communication. This can only be achieved if the local is organised.

Excerpt:

The Zimbabwean government has been working hard to attract international investors to revive the country’s failing economy. Success on this front in 2010 may hinge on the coalition government convincing investors their capital will be secure.

Investor interest in recent years has been in portfolio investment (the passive holdings of securities such as foreign stocks, bonds and other financial assets) on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and in mining.

Currently most businesses are in need of recapitalisation to boost production and restore viability. The proposed privatisation of potentially profitable parastatals such as Air Zimbabwe, the National Railways of Zimbabwe, Cold Storage Company and Tel One offers significant investment opportunities.

Many investors are making limited investments and waiting to see if the coalition government remains in place to implement a sustainable economic recovery.

Reforms in the financial sector such as the removal of cash movements controls; price controls; and the introduction of multiple currencies such as the U.S. dollar and the South African rand have seen a number of big international companies committing themselves to doing business in Zimbabwe.

In 2008 and 2009, Lonrho invested $60 million in telecommunications, pharmaceuticals and drug manufacturing interests over the past two years.

“If investors are waiting for the resolution of political issues then they might miss real business opportunities,” Goss said.

He is, however, worried about the continued existence of laws that hamper affect business operations such as strict requirements controlling work permits for expatriates.

He said the country’s new government now “needs to finish what they started”. Munyeza was referring to outstanding political issues affecting the government, including the long-delayed appointments of a central bank governor and an attorney general.

“If the politics is sorted then investors will flock to this country in two years time,” said Tsuyoshi Thomas Ueda, manager of Metals and Minerals at Sumitomo Corporation of Japan.

Prominent businesswoman and chair of the government’s Zimbabwe Investment Authority, Marah Hativagone agrees that political stability is the only thing standing between investment and disinvestment in Zimbabwe.

“It’s important to have an ongoing political and economic stability coupled with a highly de-regulated economy where investors are the masters of their own destination,” Hativagone told IPS.

Gilberto Rodrigues, an executive with Portuguese firm Motaengil, shares Hativagone’s view. “There are more complicated countries, like the DRC, which are still experiencing political problems. But people go and invest there,” Rodrigues said.

“The government of Zimbabwe is aware that the foundation for any investment is a commitment by government to guaranteeing that the rule of law is applied and adhered to without fear or favour. If business is the engine of economic growth, then the rule of law is the fuel that drives that engine,” Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai told IPS at an investment conference held in Harare in July 2009.

A Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement signed with South Africa in November is expected to boost confidence amongst investors. But so far, the agreement has offered little protection to South African farmers who have been displaced from farms by squatters, with the tacit support of the police.

A recent incident involved one of the 79 farmers who last year won a case heard by the Southern African Development Community Tribunal, which ruled that the Zimbabwean government for illegally seizing their land; squatters gave South African citizen Ray Finaughty was given just hours to leave his farm, and police refused to intervene, telling Finaughty that the matter was “political”.

“Investors are very mindful of the security of their investment. If we don’t stop continuing farm invasions no investors will come into the country,” said Henrick Olivier, chief executive officer of Zimbabwe’s Commercial Farmers Union, a grouping dominated by mostly white farmers with significant land holdings.

Control of Zimbabwe’s security forces, and direction of its legal services are among the vital, but unresolved aspects of the Global Political Agreement that created the present government, which unites the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front of President Robert Mugabe, with its bitter rival, the Movement for Democratic Change led by Prime Minister Tsvangirai and a smaller MDC faction under Arthur Mutambara.

The appointment of an attorney-general and a central bank governor, as well as the reform of the police, army and intelligence services are at the top of the agenda when negotiators from the three parties resume discussions on Jan. 16. The government is yet to appoint provincial governors and new ambassadors; or to set up new media, human rights, electoral and anti-corruption commissions.

Should these issues remain unresolved, South African president Jacob Zuma would be called upon to intervene in his capacity as SADC facilitator for Zimbabwe’s political crisis. If investors are to feel secure enough to put money directly into Zimbabwean businesses, the new year will need to be marked by new momentum in power-sharing talks that have dragged on since September 2008.

*Terna Gyuse in Cape Town contributed to this report.

A basket fund aimed at increasing the economic participation of women in Zimbabwe, has been relaunched after a start which faltered due to the delayed appointment of the new government earlier this year.

The jury is out on whether women at the grassroots are best served by Zimbabwe's Gender Support Programme. Credit: Ephraim Nsingo/IPS

The fund, properly known as the Gender Support Programme, seeks to improve gender equality and equity in Zimbabwe.

Speaking at the launch of the fund on June 17, Udo Etukudo, an MDG specialist and economist with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said the cost of not investing in gender equality in Zimbabwe was enormous.

“Gender equality is important in the reduction of not only women and girls’ poverty, but also that of men and boys,” said Etukudo.

Funds from the European Commission (EC) and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) totalling more than three million dollars, have been committed for the next three years.

The fund supports organisations in the fields of women’s health, education, migration, human trafficking, economic empowerment and decision-making.

A strict selection process is used to determine grant recipients.   Organisations working under the banner of the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ), and registered non-governmental, community and faith-based organisations working in the gender and women’s empowerment arena, are eligible.

But while the fund will engage with the women’s movement – particularly the WCoZ – it will also work with a wide network of partners in the area of gender and women’s rights, particularly those working in grassroots communities.

“We work with a cross-section of organisations both large and small, particularly those working in communities,” Ndanatsei Tawamba, the UNIFEM national director, told IPS.

She said the first phase of the fund circle had been done, and initial disbursements of about $2 million made.

“Among these is a trade organisation dealing with issues such as how the government can engage women, and more particularly those involved in trade between Zimbabwe, China, Singapore and Japan.

“We did not have an organisation dealing with cross-border traders, but hope one will be included in the next cycle.”

Tawamba said no organisation dealing specifically with HIV/AIDS had been selected as a grantee, as it was believed the pandemic was part of gender-based violence (GBV).

“For us HIV and AIDS is not a stand-alone issue – we treat it as part of GBV,” said Tawamba.

The UNIFEM official said the basket fund was firmly rooted in Millennium Development Goal 3, which seeks to promote gender equality and empower women.

“There is a big scarcity of resources for gender issues, so we are happy that the fund has taken off, and it is a good thing donors are pulling together to promote women,” Tawamba told IPS.

Asked what impact the fund had had so far, she said, “Issues to do with women have suffered for a long time in Zimbabwe due to economic, social and political problems, but the fund has had a positive effect so far, because women at grassroot level are benefiting from the work of the organisations which received funds, and can now present their issues.”    But she admitted it was still too early to measure real impact.

There is no role for the government in this revival of the fund.

“We are working only with civic society organisations (CSOs),” Tawamba told IPS.

But many grassroots organisations which are often used in justifying funding are left out.

Emma Mahlunge, who works with a grassroots-based organisation, the Kunzwana Women’s Association, told IPS that the KWA feels it has been left out.

“It’s better for UNIFEM to do their things without us because the design of the funding mechanism favours big organisations and ignores grassroots organisations working with community-based women whose idea of empowerment is to enable them to form commodities associations, access markets and achieve self sufficiency,” Mahlunge told IPS.

She complained about funding criteria which force grassroots organisations to partner with big organisations dealing with policy related issues that affect women.

“For us it makes no sense to ask organisations with women who can’t even speak English to partner with an organisation of lawyers, when we attend meetings discussions are only in English and they are often held in hotels where most of the grassroots women have no access. UNIFEM should give us funding directed at our needs.”

Activist Rita Nyamupinga, works with WCoZ, but nonetheless questions the coalition’s position managing the fund.

“The fund is helping women make a difference because organisations that previously couldn’t access funding are getting something but there is a gap,” she told IPS. “The money is too little and the distribution pattern is problematic because it assumes that WCoZ represents all women.”

“The fund acquires an elitist agenda because most of the grassroots organisations are not part of WCoZ.”

She added that the Gender Scoping Study done ahead of the establishment of the basket fund was all inclusive, but the implementation of the fund is exclusive.

“Most grassroots organisations’ members cannot write proposals. They are asked to engage consultants who are often paid a lot of money eating almost half of the money that they are applying for so these donors must plan with all that information in mind,” Nyamupinga told IPS.

Naome Chimbetete, who works with the Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN), concurs, but hopes her organisation will benefit from the fund.

“The fund is making a difference in women’s lives in areas it has touched, but the design needs to be reworked to include the specific needs of grassroots organisations  which are unfortunately sometimes left out. That is the weakness of the fund,” said Chimbetete.

By Stanley Kwenda
CHITSA, Zimbabwe, Nov 2 2009 (IPS)

In Chitsa, a village with some 2,000 inhabitants located about 250 km from Zimbabwe’s capital of Harare, it has become difficult to conduct everyday transactions involving money.

The village has been slow to embrace the multi-currency system introduced by the Zimbabwean government in February this year after the value of the Zimbabwean dollar continued to plunge catastrophically. Although the use of multiple currencies quickly became common in cities and towns, it is proving to be difficult to implement in rural areas.

In Chitsa, it has become common practice to pay for goods and services in kind. At Mutema Shopping Centre, shop owners accept both payment in cash or kind. They only accept cash if no change needs to be given.

Trymore Mutisi, a teacher at the nearby Mutema Primary School, told IPS that bartering has become a way of life. “In times of difficulty people learn how to improvise, which they have done here for a long time,” Mutisi explained.

He conducts extra lessons for final year students at his school and gets paid in kind. “I get whatever parents can give me. Goats, maize meal, rice… whatever they can offer, I just take because I know there is nowhere they can get money,” Mutisi empathised.

The use of foreign currencies, such as the South African rand, Botswana’s pula, U.S. dollar or British pound, has affected rural people negatively as those far from foreign borders have no access to foreign currency. But they have found a way around it with barter trade.

“The government should introduce a policy where people living in ‘the back of the beyond’, like us, can be allowed to barter goods in exchange of services. It is not anybody’s fault but things must be done to accommodate everyone,” demanded Mutisi.

At Mutema Shopping Centre, only three shops are operating: a general dealer, a grinding mill and a bottle store.

Abel Zinyeka, who owns the Mutema Bottle Store, described the situation in the area as “business at your own risk.

“We accept this barter trade in the hope that whatever we get here will be exchanged for cash in town and give us an opportunity to restock our shops. There is nothing that we can do because these people just don’t have access to money. Otherwise we have to close the shops.”

A councillor in the area, Munyaradzi Mandivheyi, explained to IPS that adjusting to life under the new monetary regime has been very difficult for his people. “We agree with the idea of introducing multiple currencies but it has been difficult for people living in Mutema.

“People ‘are seeing fire over this’ (are angry) but we are glad that the business people understand our plight. Life is far from normal here,” believes Mandivheyi.

Many people living in rural areas such as Chitsa are peasant farmers who depend on their crops for their survival. Farmers barter to have their maize milled to make the local staple called “sadza”.

Some are forced to surrender a 20 lt bucket full of tomatoes for a trip to nearby Masvingo town. In such cases, the exchange is not equal as a 20 lt bucket of tomatoes would normally fetch a price that is five times what the journey to Masvingo costs. But business people that IPS spoke to argued that the farmers voluntarily give their produce in exchange of goods and services.

Nevertheless, Mutema peasant farmer Claudius Chimwanda told IPS that they do so because they have no alternative. “There is nothing you can do. If you want to go to town you have to give the transport people what they want.

“If you want bathing soap, bread, cooking oil or anything from their shops, you have to give the shop owners what they wants. That the way of life but it’s difficult for us,” lamented Chimwanda.

“We are like a forgotten tribe here in the rural areas. Everything happens in Harare and we only get to hear about it when decisions are made. We are never consulted about anything but we suffer the most,” he added.

Speaking to Zimbabwe’s state media earlier this year, Oxfam’s director for Zimbabwe, Peter Mutoredzanwa, warned that bartering food for services might leave many at the risk of food shortages.

The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ), which is interested in safeguarding the rights of consumers, is engaging the government on how best it can serve the rural people under the current financial regime. “We are making consultations on the system can be improved,” Rosemary Siyachitema, CCZ director, told IPS.

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Oct 16 2009 (IPS)

Agriculture used to be Zimbabwe’s economic mainstay but it has been on the decline since 2000 when the ZANU-PF government embarked on a so-called land reform programme that resulted in about 4,000 productive white farmers losing their farms, many to members of the politically connected elite.

The programme is largely to blame for the huge food deficit that Zimbabweans face. Farmers are regrouping to take stock of the present situation. Recently a two-day conference was held to review the status of the agricultural sector and come up with a recovery strategy. Issues of compensation and respect for property rights came under the spotlight.

Several farmers hammered home the point that government and the private sector need to fund agriculture if the sector was to recover.

"We need to start from scratch. Confidence among traditional funders, such as banks and other private sector players, is at its lowest as a result of the continuing lawlessness on the farms," Trevor Gifford, a commercial farmer and president of the Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU), told IPS.

"Previously we used to just walk into any bank and get loans to fund our farming operations but now we can’t offer the collateral security needed by the banks because of the lack of security of tenure." The Zimbabwean government has issued 99 year leases on land to the newly resettled farmers that banks refuse to accept as collateral because the leases cannot be sold or transferred.

Unlike the previous owners, the newly resettled farmers have no title deeds, making it difficult to borrow from banks. In the past, international banks such as Barclays and Standard Chartered Bank funded farmers who put up their land as collateral. "We need to address the ownership issue of land so that we go back to the situation where farmers have security of tenure," farmer Charles Taffs said. "Without that we are not going anywhere and we may just as well stop thinking of the recovery of agriculture."

"Although everything seems to be fine on the outside, the rule of law just isn't there. It's applied very selectively as we continue to see with the continuing farm invasions that the government has chosen to ignore," Gifford told IPS. "There has been progress, but the reality is that the government of national unity has no unity."

But Ngoni Masoka, permanent secretary in the ministry of agriculture, mechanisation and irrigation development, told IPS that the World Bank-funded conference was an indication of better things to come. "We got the necessary stakeholder participation and input into formulating an agricultural strategy," Masoka said.

The World Bank has provided farming with a timely shot in the arm by donating 74 million dollars to help poor farmers in Zimbabwe. David Rohrbach, a senior agricultural economist for the Bank, said the money will benefit 700,000 families through the procurement of seeds, fertilizers and other agricultural equipment for the coming harvest.

The money will be channelled through non-governmental organisations involved in the agricultural and humanitarian sectors.

But despite this intervention, farmers say the country could still face another grain deficit in the next season due to poor preparations and lack of funding. This is despite government projecting a maize output of up to 2.5 million tons next season, which would mark a return to food self-sufficiency. Zimbabwe needs about 1.8 million tons of the staple maize per year, according to official figures.

"What we're seeing on the ground paints a different picture," Berean Mukwende, vice president of the Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union (ZFU), a predominantly black farmers’ association, said. "Many farmers are having difficulties in terms of accessing inputs and time is running out."

But Masoka insisted that government support and funding will result in a good harvest. "Last year, we were assisted by the Southern African Development Community, through South Africa, to get 300 million rand (41 million dollars). Now we are talking of more money, so we should produce more," Masoka said.

Another effort is that of the United States Agency for International Development (USAid), which signed an agreement with Standard Chartered Bank of Zimbabwe three weeks ago.

The agreement will enable the bank to expand its lending to farmers by 20 million dollars over five years. It will allow the bank to increase the number of loans directly to farmers and enterprises that can provide inputs and technical assistance to small holder farmers with the ultimate objective of increasing productivity and production.

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda and Terna Gyuse
HARARE, Sep 19 2009 (IPS)

Desperate for investment to lift its moribund economy, the Zimbabwe government welcomed hundreds of prospective mining investors to a conference in Harare this week.

Asbestos mine at Mashava: royalties and taxes will be set to 'rational' levels and bureaucracy simplified to attract mining investment in Zimbabwe. Credit: Kevin Walsh/Wikimedia

Zimbabwe has the world’s second-biggest platinum reserves after South Africa and large unexplored deposits of diamonds, coal and nickel; the conference attracted strong representation from major multinational mining concerns.

Uppermost in the minds of investors was the need for guarantees that their assets would be protected.

In 2007, a law was passed allowing Zimbabwe’s government to seize a majority share in all mines, in some instances without paying a cent. Niels Kristensen, a senior executive with Australia-based mining multinational Rio Tinto wanted to know that government will guarantee that such asset seizures would not be repeated.

“Until we see some certainty, there won’t be significant investment in mining,” said Kristensen.

The country’s Mines and Mineral Act, presently under review, states that locals must hold at least 51 percent of any mining venture. Government’s message to investors was that royalties and taxes on mining will be simplified and lowered, but that companies would be expected to invest in local communities.

Elton Mangoma, minister of economic planning and investment promotion, told IPS that “it is important to balance these competing interests in a manner that benefits both the investor and the country. Mining royalties should be viewed as compensation for exploitation of finite resources and not as tax.”

Which way forward?

The Affirmative Action Group (AAG), an organisation with interests in advancing the participation of Zimbabwean blacks in business, told IPS that whatever mining deal the government enters into, it must make sure that it significantly benefits local people.

“If they are not pushed, they will not move. So we believe government must stipulate up to 50 percent ownership in mining by locals so that 50 percent of benefits go to Zimbabweans.”

But the wind is blowing in a different direction. Prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai assured mining industry players that “rational” royalties and taxes would be implemented.

Tsvangirai said he sees mining as the best opportunity to attract substantial investment in the immediate term, and added that any laws concerning ownership of mines by Zimbabweans would be in line with what he called “international norms”.

Elsewhere in Africa…

Emmanuel Jengo, president of Tanzania’s Chamber of Minerals and Energy, told IPS that his country’s mining sector picked up after the introduction of a raft of mining policies beginning in 1992.

Among these were measures aimed at stimulating small-scale mining operations as part of raising mining’s contribution to the economy to 25 percent of the country’s GDP.

The 1998 Mining Act sought to eliminate bureaucracy in licensing procedures, something Zimbabwean mines minister Obert Mpofu also pledged to do at the conference. Tanzania also introduced reforms providing improved fiscal terms for the mining sector and guarantees to allow companies to trade minerals freely.

A report published earlier this year by Tax Justice Network Africa and ActionAid questioned the terms on which mining multinationals operate in Tanzania and elsewhere in Africa. It found that favourable legislation has set low royalty rates, which combines with mining contracts – often negotiated behind closed doors – to routinely grant companies further tax concessions and holidays of up to 25 years.

Sharply critical of the “international norms” that have shaped mining laws on the continent, the report suggested that Tanzania lost 30 million dollars of revenue in 2008 as a result. South Africa lost 359 million.

“African governments have enacted laws giving tax subsidies to the industry and mining companies have been pushing for tax breaks in secret mining contracts, amounting to an aggressive tax avoidance strategy,” says the publication. Among many recommendations, the report called for legislation that ensures mining contracts are scrutinised by parliaments, to guard against corruption.

Investor friendly

The permanent secretary in Zimbabwe’s ministry of mines and mining development, Thankful Musukutwa, who is spearheading reforms of Zimbabwe’s Mines and Minerals Act, told IPS that he is looking at coming up with a proper balancing act.

“Foreign investors will pay royalties to government treasury and it is the government which will spearhead development in areas that the mining companies are operating in,” said Musukutwa.

In the past the government of Zimbabwe has received these royalties but channelled the money for use in other areas, but Musukutwa said “we had to do that because of the economic problems that the country was facing.”

He said the government is looking at improving infrastructure in areas that the foreign investors are looking to invest in by building dams and increasing electricity generation to boost production.

He added that the government has liberalised the marketing of gold and now guarantees foreign mining investors the option to repatriate profits and investment and profits when they decide to disinvest.

The years to come will reveal in whose favour – citizens’ or mining multinationals’ – the balance being struck by the government of national unity will tip.

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda
KINSHASA, Sep 18 2009 (IPS)

“We produce electricity but we manage darkness. We have big energy sources of electricity but only 20 percent of the population has access to electricity because most of the energy is sold to foreign countries.”

Victor Nzuzi Mbembe: "Are we privatising for the sake of privatising?" Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

He added: “The people in the Bakongo region have seen lines of electricity being put in. These lines pass over their heads. The electricity will be going to Congo-Brazzaville, Zambia and Zimbabwe. For so many years they have seen these electricity lines but they have never seen a lit electric bulb.”

In 2008, the DRC’s government announced its intention to privatise a number of public enterprises, arguing that the move will help make them profitable. But the big question that the people of the DRC want an answer to is whether they will benefit from the proceeds of the sale.

“Are we just privatising for the sake of privatising?” Victor Nzuzi Mbembe of the Kinshasa-based social justice organisation, Platform for Development, asked in an interview with IPS in the Congolese capital.

For Nzuzi, the DRC tells the story of Africa in “a very sharp way”. Despite the fact that the continent is rich in mineral resources these riches are not benefitting Africans. The same is happening in the DRC.

He said the people of DRC are suffering from “a colonial hangover” as “65 percent of businesses in the DRC are owned by multinational companies”.

Nzuzi accused the DRC government of failing to reform public enterprises to make them profitable. Instead of introducing reforms, the DRC government is preoccupied with selling state enterprises to foreign companies which are only interested in plundering DRC resources.

Currently there is growing opposition from civil society groups in DRC over the proposed takeover and joint venture projects that President Joseph Kabila’s government is negotiating with Chinese companies.

The Platform for Development pointed out that the DRC government has already accepted nine billion dollars in investments from China, to be spent on mining and infrastructure, despite the opposition of the International Monetary Fund and civil society groups in the DRC.

According to the deal, the Chinese will take over some of the state enterprises and work in partnership with others. Among some of the state companies that will work with the Chinese companies are Sicomines Sarl, a joint venture between state-owned metals producer La Générale des Carrières et des Mines (Gécamines) and various Chinese mining companies.

This new joint venture — to become operational in 2011 — is reportedly set to produce up to 400,000 tons of copper and 19,000 tons of cobalt per annum. Several other DRC companies will also work in joint ventures with China Railway Engineering Corporation and Sinohydro Corporation. These received funding from China Exim Bank.

Bokundu told IPS he is not satisfied with this arrangement: “It’s privatisation under the cover of joint ventures.” His organisation wants a review of laws that guide the privatisation of public enterprises.

“When we demand reform of public enterprises there is a reason why we do that. Our constitution says we must safeguard our resources and all things that are done in Congo must be for the benefit of the people,” Bokundu argued.

“The laws are clear on how and when public enterprises can be reformed but they are not followed.” Bokundu said some of the companies in investment, telecommunications, finance, energy, transport and mining sectors, which have been privatised since 2002, are making huge profits of billions of dollars.

“These organisations are said to be paralysed when they are making money. The private sector in the DRC and government officials are working in cahoots with big international firms to plunder the resources of the Congo through the privatisation of state property,” exclaimed Bokundu.

He said the existing legal framework is more favourable to international firms to exploit the DRC economy than to benefitting the people of DRC. “Our demand is that nothing should be done for us without us.”

The system of monopoly capital should be addressed and the DRC government should cancel all contracts issued to private companies before the setting up of the DRC unity government in 2006.

The DRC government is currently reviewing mining contracts awarded foreign companies during war time which many people believe were acquired in a fraudulent way but many foreign companies in the DRC are refusing to co-operate.

When state-owned mines were privatised during the mid-1990s, large international mining companies rushed to stake a claim to Congo’s mineral wealth, which includes cobalt, copper, diamonds, gold, silver, tin and coltan, essential for use in cell phones.

The trail of tainted minerals has been well-documented in the DRC’s most recent wars. Fighters on all sides got supplies of food, money, and military hardware in exchange for smuggled resources.

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Sep 12 2009 (IPS)

The United States has embarked on a mission to restore Africa's trust in U.S. commitment to global AIDS relief.

Eric Goosby: 'The new twist to the Obama administration's foreign policy is to use our ability to deliver health technical assistance as a diplomatic tool.' Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

In recent months, PEPFAR has been slammed by AIDS activists for not honouring HIV funding commitments.

On a recent visit to Zimbabwe, Eric Goosby, the global AIDS coordinator for the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) reassured Southern Africans of the U.S.'s commitment.

PEPFAR contributes more than $3.7 billion to HIV prevention and care globally, but despite Obama's campaign promise of an annual increase of $1 billion, the U.S. Congress did not increase the budget this year.

IPS: Has the Obama administration made any changes to the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)?

Eric Goosby: The strategy that was engaged before the Obama administration came in will be continued and enhanced. We believe that our ability to better understand how to fight AIDS will be improved with an increased dialogue with ministries of health in countries (in which) we run programmes and (with) civil society and non-governmental organisations.

IPS: What is your position on male circumcision as a preferred HIV/AIDS preventative measure?

EG: The research that showed that male circumcision decreases by 60 percent the likelihood of an individual getting infected was remarkable and surprising, even to those of us who have been in this field for a long time. It turns out that there are cells that uncircumcised men do not have – these are specific cells that make uncircumcised men more susceptible to HIV.

But a (circumcised) individual can still get infected (with HIV). Circumcision drops the likelihood of infection, but it is not the answer. Condom use continues to be the mainstay of how men can protect themselves and others from infection.

IPS: The US has been accused of putting business interests before human lives, when buying more expensive, U.S.-manufactured antiretroviral (ARV) drugs instead of generic drugs manufactured outside of the U.S.

EG: It's legitimate criticism. The U.S. was initially worried that generic drugs were not effective. There was a worry that generic drugs had not been clearly (tested for) short- and long-term side effects. We were also worried about their generic manufacturing, their production controls, which we thought was not rigorous.

So, initially, the U.S. government was concerned that we would be creating double standards by giving patients in resource-poor settings drugs that we had not tested and that we did not give to our own population so PEPFAR initially only gave branded drugs.

But we have now switched completely to go into generic drugs, because (their lower cost) increases the number of people we can provide with drugs. I think that we had a legitimate reason not to engage with the generic drugs initially but now I don't think it's still defensible (to do so).

IPS: Do you think Southern Africa will be able to achieve universal access to treatment by 2015?

EG: I don't think it is realistic. I think it is something that PEPFAR is playing a central role in trying to move towards, but the resources that are required to respond to the large number of individuals who need to be put on ARVs by 2015 will not be met.

That's not to say that every funder and every government may stop turning their resources towards trying to develop a robust response. We need to coordinate our efforts to make sure that the resources available are used to their best and intensify our efforts to decrease the number of people affected by HIV and AIDS. PEPFAR is committed to keeping (continuous, free ARV) treatment a key part of our response.

IPS: AIDS activists say PEPFAR's funding shortfall will affect the lives of about 30 million people. What are you doing to prevent this from happening?

EG: The global economic crisis has had an impact on resource availability. President Barack Obama and secretary of state Hillary Clinton have made it very clear that (making more funding available) is the highest priority.

The new twist to the Obama administration's (foreign policy) is to use our ability to deliver health technical assistance as a diplomatic tool (when dealing with developing countries). So, (HIV funding becomes both) a humanitarian gesture and something to create dialogue with countries.

IPS: What is the U.S. doing to help improve the health infrastructure and boost human capital in Southern Africa?

EG: There is no question that you cannot deliver adequate treatment without facilities that are strong enough to support the diagnostic and monitoring needs of individuals who are on ARV therapy. The structure of the health facility, the accessibility of the hospital to patients is critical for the health provider to make proper decisions.

A significant portion of our resources must go to strengthening the medical delivery system, especially at district and village level, to support that (country's) ability to care for people over the duration of their lives.

We are committed to providing proper infrastructure to allow health workers to administer medication. We are willing to work with all parties, government and civil society, to make this (happen).

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda
KINSHASA, Sep 11 2009 (IPS)

The global economic crisis has hit the African continent especially hard despite not being involved in its making, civil society organisations gathered in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo heard at the fifth people’s summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

An activist shows off a popular slogan. Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

Percy Makombe, programmes manager at EJN, told IPS that a cotton farmer who was paid 0.54 dollars per kg before the financial crisis was being 0.23 dollars now. EJN is attached to the Fellowship of Christian Councils in Southern Africa (FOCCISA).

For Makombe, who was speaking at the fifth summit of the Southern Africa People’s Solidarity Network in Kinshasa this past weekend, this is the opportunity for African people to confront capitalism and re-write the world order.

He noted that the entire region is paying for the meltdown, which was configured in western capitals and signifies a breakdown in the capitalist system. There is need for radical reform of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. These institutions need to comply with the unique needs of the region, failing which the region should leave the window open to pull out of them.

A new policy space should be created with the aim of promoting a South-South trading zone that will buffer the failures of the IMF and the World Bank, Makombe told IPS.

He added that the capitalist system was very harsh to the extent of forcing the poor to pay for the chaos created by the rich. He cited the case of Malawian cotton farmers who are not receiving bail-outs such as what were being given to the international financial conglomerates, despite the fact that their livelihoods are being wiped away.

The global financial crisis has been devastating effect for the DRC. With a background of chronic wars, disease and lack of food, the DRC has more than enough issues to worry about.

Poverty is written all of the country. It is quite visible in the sprawling city of Kinshasa were millions live on begging and crime.

For the DRC, it has proved to be a lesson in natural resource governance and that dependence on primary commodities leaves a state particularly vulnerable. The mining and logging sectors have been hit hard by the downturn. Fourteen copper mines have closed down. But the most devastating events have been in the less discussed informal sector.

According to the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), a think tank attached to the University of the Witwatersrand, an estimated 300,000 artisanal copper and cobalt miners in Kolwezi lost their livelihoods due to the fall in copper and cobalt prices on the world market.

"Compared to purely extractive mineral resources, a tree might well have greater global value and utility left in the ground than it would be as a cabinet or a table," said SAIIA in its recent critique of the effects of the financial crisis on DRC.

According to the Africa Trade Network (ATN), the continent lost trade earnings of 251 billion dollars. African governments will lose about 19 billion dollars in custom revenues.

The currencies of some of Africa’s big economies such as South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria continue to depreciate in value while much needed remittances from Africans in the diaspora, which are the life blood of many families, are drying up.

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Sep 10 2009 (IPS)

The Professional Women, Executives and Businesswomen’s Forum (PROWEB) organised a unique investment conference last week in Zimbabwe’s capital where businesswomen from South Africa and Zimbabwe got the opportunity to not only network but forge what may be a unique African association among businesswomen across national borders.

The conference resolved, among others, to create an executive committee that will pursue women’s economic empowerment in both southern African countries.

PROWEB’s members meet to share ideas on how they can increase their participation in economic development. It is led by Harare businesswoman, Florence Ziumbe. The conference was also attended by more than 40 top businesswomen from the Businesswomen’s Association of South Africa (BWASA), an organisation headed by Basetsana Kumalo.

BWASA comprises the top business and professional women in South Africa and was created as a platform for the inspiration and empowerment of women in business. Its membership exceeds 30,000 women.

Stanley Kwenda spoke to Ziumbe about businesswomen’s different experiences in the two countries, the need for affirmative action legislation for women in Zimbabwe and the new regional committee that the sister organisations forged.

IPS: Where did the idea come from to have this investment conference for women? Florence Ziumbe (FZ): A lot has happened to our sisters from across the Limpopo (river that forms the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa) in terms of getting into business. We have had a number of business delegations coming to Zimbabwe with limited representation of women.

One of the business delegations that recently came to Zimbabwe in April from South Africa to look for investment opportunities had only one woman. It is with this background that this conference is very important for Zimbabwean and South African businesswomen.

But we also want to learn from BWASA and its cooperating partners. They have already won legislation for women’s economic empowerment in South Africa and we want to go that direction.

The South African women are already major players in mega ventures in energy generation, distribution, mining, construction and financial industries. We want to learn from them how to shed the skin of small-time tuck-shop operators.

IPS: What did you hope to achieve through this conference? FZ: I hoped a number of deals will be brokered after the conference. We hoped that through this interaction of businesswomen at such a high level meeting, they will be able to start making meaningful contributions to their country’s economies.

We need to see value in dealing with each other as women. This level of organisation can change South African and Zimbabwean women. If we cannot do it ourselves, then we can’t blame men.

IPS: Zimbabwean women are still playing a cameo role in business. What should be done to improve the extent of their economic and business participation? FZ: For a long time men had been at the forefront of setting economic policy and doing business while women were reduced to spectators but now is the time for women to also actively take part in business.

We have been left out at the table where wealth has been distributed and now we want space at that table and we are now ready to occupy that space. Empowering women economically is smart economics.

As women we have resolved to take the bull by the horns. We have realised that if we do not stand for ourselves no man is going to open up economic space for us. We are going to use the space that we have to create business alliances that will catapult women to decision-making level in business and to influencing policy.

IPS: Do you think the government is doing enough in this respect? FZ: The fact that we are now enjoying this space at this conference is testimony that the government is doing its part. Also the fact that Vice President Joyce Mujuru came to participate is testimony that the government is committed to improving the role of women in the economy of our country.

But, while recognising the role that the Zimbabwean government has played in economically empowering women, this has largely remained in the small to medium sectors. Women have enough petty projects and are now ready to partake in multi-million dollar mega initiatives in all sectors of the economy.

We are hopeful that the interaction that we have had with our South African friends will create a rallying point for professionals and businesswomen for active and meaningful participation in the economy.

IPS: Did you achieve your goals? FZ: At the close of the conference we also resolved to promote cooperation between the members of PROWEB and BWASA through appropriate business vehicles such as partnerships and joint ventures and push the products of members in the markets of our two countries.

We will do this through a committe of four members that will have executive authority to implement the resolutions of the conference and to formulate strategy for realising the two sister organisations‘ vision of total economic empowerment of women in the respective countries. So, in a nutshell, we have been successful.

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda
KINSHASA, Sep 9 2009 (IPS)

Condemning Zimbabwe’s withdrawal from a regional tribunal which ruled its state-orchestrated land seizures illegal, civil society groups have said the country should abide by decisions of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) or pull out of the regional body entirely.

Rights groups say allowing Zimbabwe to flout a SADC tribunal ruling against land seizures will undermine respect for rights throughout the region. Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

"The SADC Tribunal is now an integral part of the SADC Treaty. Any attempt to pull out of the Tribunal by the government of Zimbabwe would amount to pulling out of SADC as a whole," the civil groups said in a statement.   Zimbabwe announced on Sep. 2 that it would no longer be bound by decisions of the Namibia-based regional court, claiming that the treaty which led to its formation is yet to be ratified by at least two thirds of the member countries.

The civic groups said an amendment to the SADC Treaty establishing the Tribunal in 2001 made the tribunal an integral part of SADC. The SAPSN and the watchdog Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights both point out that the tribunal protocol categorically excluded it from the usual requirement for ratification by two thirds before it could come into force and effect.

Several white farmers and a black commercial farmer approached the tribunal opposing the haphazard land reform programme launched by the Harare government in 2000.

The programme saw about 4,000 white farmers losing their land to blacks when the Zimbabwean government embarked on a controversial and often violent programme to grab land from white commercial farmers. This was under the pretext that it was correcting a colonial imbalance which left vast tracts of arable land in the hands of a few white farmers and relegated blacks to useless reserve areas.

Land redistribution, which Mugabe says is necessary to correct an "unjust and immoral" colonial land ownership system, is blamed for plunging Zimbabwe into food shortages after Harare failed to support black villagers resettled on former white farms with support necessary to maintain production.

The tribunal ruled in favour of the farmers in November 2008 , finding the Zimbabwe government in violation of a SADC treaty which protects regional citizens against discrimination on the basis of race. The regional court ordered Harare not to evict the 78 farmers who brought the case, as well as well as pay full compensation to those already forced off their farms.

Mugabe publicly dismissed the ruling, while his followers in the military and his Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party defied the court order by continuing to seize more land from the few white farmers remaining in Zimbabwe.

While the Harare government has compensated some farmers for developments on the land such as dams, roads and buildings and says it is committed to compensating all farmers for such improvements, Mugabe has refused to pay for land seized, saying it was stolen from blacks in the first place.

SAPSN is urging SADC leaders to reject the precedent set by Zimbabwe's withdrawal from the Windhoek-based Tribunal.

"SADC should make sure that Zimbabwe institute human rights reforms and comply with regional agreements and carry out the commitments made under those agreements," said Tabani Moyo of the regional media lobby group Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA).

Ignatius Banda reports from Bulawayo that SADC's call for the lifting of sanctions on prominent members of ZANU-PF has been greeted with dismay in Zimbabwe.

Excerpt:

By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Sep 8 2009 (IPS)

"Government must lead in breaking down the stereotypes of women as tuck-shop owners, candle-makers, peasant farmers, teachers and nurses and create the reality in which they become hoteliers, large-scale commercial farmers, miners and proprietors of retail chains."

These were the words of Zimbabwe’s vice president Joyce Mujuru addressing a women’s investment conference held in Harare on Sep 4. The conference was attended by South African and Zimbabwean businesswomen.

It was organised by the Zimbabwean businesswomen‘s organisation called Profesional Women, Executives and Businesswomen’s Forum (PROWEB) and aimed at promoting the participation of women in the economies of both countries.

Backing their call for increased participation by women in the two economies, Mujuru told the conference that the country’s coalition government is working on creating a conducive environment for women to enter business.

"A secure and peaceful environment is but one of the things the government must create in its bid to advance the interests of professional and businesswomen. The environment must be complimented by the physical infrastructure necessary for business to thrive," said Mujuru.

She said Zimbabwe’s new government offers them an opportunity to enter into business and urged them to work with parliamentarians to lobby for laws that empower women.

Zimbabwe used to be South Africa’s biggest trading partner in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region before the country experienced its economic downturn from 2000 onwards.

South African businesswomen attended the event under the Businesswomen‘s Association of South Africa (BWASA), whose delegation was led by Kunyalala Mapisa. BWASA is an influential association, with membership of over 30,000 people.

The conference discussed how women can increase their participation in the economies of their countries and break the glass ceiling in the corporate world.

Mapisa told IPS that women played a central role in society and need to claim their share of the economy. "Women should take their meaningful and rightful place. South African and Zimbabwean women can do this together," she insisted.

The South African businesswoman told the conference that women in South Africa are slowly breaking the business barriers. They have interests in construction, mining, foreign currency trading, tourism, media, agriculture, energy, health, pharmaceutical, manufacturing and finance.

The president of the International Women’s Forum South Africa, Namani Mahawu, said Zimbabwe can learn from South Africa in areas of empowerment and legislation. "The South African government has been doing a lot in terms of empowering women and the excitement we are getting from our Zimbabwean counterparts is quite encouraging. We are hoping that they will lobby the government to copy and adopt legislation that makes life easier for women who want to venture into business," declared Mahawu.

She urged the Zimbabwean government to relax legislation that hampers investment in the country.

Thandi Ndlovu, who owns the South African Motheo Construction Group, said BWASA was mainly interested in empowering Zimbabwean businesswomen on how to scout for business opportunities in Zimbabwe. "It makes a lot of business sense to collaborate in the economic liberation of women," Ndlovu told IPS.

Elton Mangoma, Zimbabwe’s minister of economic planning and development, told IPS that, he "want to see more women getting involved and getting involved in a big way. We want to transform this country and government cannot do it alone. Women can come in and invest and bring new technologies."

Theresa Makone, one of the few female ministers in the new Zimbabwean government, told IPS that "this is the time for women to come together and get business deals, otherwise they will miss out. There are a number of investment opportunities that have been created by this peaceful environment that we are in today.

"If we do not seize this opportunity now, the train will leave us behind as it has always done," Makone, who is minister of public works, told IPS.

The conference agreed to promote cooperation between and advance business partnerships. Participants also aim to promote the opening of new markets in both countries for goods and services and to cooperate in their pursuit of investment opportunities in key sectors of their country’s economies.

They have also resolved to constitute a 10-member committee by Oct 4 with executive authority. The committee will implement a vision of the total economic empowerment of women in their respective countries.

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By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Sep 7 2009 (IPS)

Eager to restore Zimbabwe’s moribund economy, the country’s government has been soliciting investment globally. But the troubled southern African country finds itself in an unenviable balancing act between protecting its economic interests while attracting foreign investors.

After several years of negative economic growth, some citizens have become vocal about wanting control over business activities.

An organisation calling itself the Affirmative Action Group wants every investment that comes into the country to have local representation. “We want economic independence and that’s what we are pushing for,” Tafadzwa Musarara, secretary general of the Affirmative Action Group, told IPS.

AAG regards itself as the local vanguard of black empowerment in business, education and employment. Its demands follow in the wake of legislation passed when the former ZANU-PF government decided to force foreign companies to hand majority ownership to “indigenous” Zimbabweans.

“Colonisation disenfranchised the indigenous people and it is this legacy that we wanted to change through this law,” argued Musarara. “Attainment of independence is not complete without economic independence.”

The “indigenisation” law, introduced more than a year ago, was aimed at forcing 51 percent Zimbabwean ownership of enterprises. But the law seems to have scared off investors from outside the country, leading to what seem like a change of tack by the current coalition government of the MDC and ZANU-PF. The laws are being reviewed.

During a trip to Europe in June to try and mend relations with European countries, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC, told audiences that changing the laws was “an urgent matter that needed to be dealt with”.

The minister of regional integration and international trade, Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga, told IPS that, “under the global set-up that we live in, there is need to (strike a balance between) that which allows good investment and that which caters for indigenous provisions because there is always something that talks to ownership of resources by locals,” Misihairabwi-Mushonga told IPS.

“The (Affirmative Action Group) is right to lobby for what they believe in but discussions are taking place in government on how to accommodate indigenisation without kicking investors away.”

But Musarara argues that the laws are simply being misunderstood. “We are entitled to the resources under the ground and over the ground, like in Europe, the U.S. and Asia. There are unnecessary fears over the indigenisation law. Yes, it calls for 51 percent local ownership but it is open to negotiation like in any other business transaction,” argued Musarara.

“This issue has to be clarified before the investors come. The law comes at a price but our resources are not renewable and we should use them for the future generations.”

Last month, the organisation caused a diplomatic tiff when it demanded that German-owned international courier, DHL, cede stocks to locals in line with the country’s indigenisation law. The Germany embassy advised the Zimbabwean government that it would reconsider its relations with the country if the interference with DHL continued.

But the Affirmative Action Group insisted that all foreign companies have to comply with local laws. “When we see people flouting laws then we have to force them to comply,” Musara said.

The pressure group added that it will also fight against the hiring of expatriates by foreign-owned companies operating in Zimbabwe in situations where there are locals who have the qualifications to run the enterprises.

“We are going to lobby the immigration department and we will oppose the issuing of permits to foreigners flouting indigenisation laws. Foreigners should train our local people and prepare them to take over. We are convinced that we have enough of our own who can now run these foreign companies in high positions,” Musarara told IPS.

The organisation also lobbies for laws to protect local industries and create employment for Zimbabweans. According to the International Labour Organisation, Zimbabwe’s unemployment rate stands at 96 percent.

The manufacturing sector is still operating at less than 20 percent capacity and the population depends on food imports for survival.

Musarara is of the opinion that there is a need to make space for local industries to create jobs and boost the country’s economy through exports. “We are totally against an uncontrolled influx of goods. Our people are unnecessarily exposed to competition from unscrupulous foreign producers. We need to protect local industries and create employment,” Musarara told IPS.

“What we have at the moment are solutions that take short cuts. We are just shooting ourselves in the foot.”

There has been an influx of foreign goods from countries such as South Africa, China, Brazil and India. Most of these goods, ranging from mineral water, maize meal, sugar and breast feeding supplements, have been found to be sub-standard.

The government has since banned some of these goods, including milk formula, cordials diluted in water to make sweetened drinks, chicken and flavoured water.

“We opened our borders in a hurry but we now need to license foreign producers of food and subject their goods to a quality test before they are put on the market,” insisted Musarara.

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By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Aug 19 2009 (IPS)

Zimbabweans like to believe that there is strength in numbers, which is the idea behind a local non-governmental organisation’s attempt to organise small-scale rural cotton farmers in cotton producer associations.

Cotton farmers at a meeting with ZIMCODD in Gokwe. Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

The associations serve as platforms where farmers share knowledge on the use of appropriate and affordable technologies aimed at increasing their agricultural produce. They help to establish strong working relationships between farmers and service delivery institutions and to create strong linkages with agribusinesses and lending institutions.

They are voluntary organisations formed by smallholder farmers to mobilise their resources for collective action. The aim is to commercialise smallholder farming practice using a high value commodity, such as cotton, as the vehicle for socio-economic transformation.

Initially the project, started in 2005, was about providing information to help farmers with market access issues but it now involves a broad range of issues.

“These associations help farmers negotiate and claim their rights to support services and market access from relevant authorities as well as lobbying for pro-farmer policies,” ZIMCODD director Dakarayi Matanga told IPS.

He added that his organisation is also taking a deliberate approach to promote the rights of female farmers who are usually marginalised in decision-making processes.

“This will result in marginalised women experiencing increased market access to support services and fair trade markets for their commodities,” Matanga said. “Men want to make decisions on behalf of women and youths. In this regard, producer associations ensure that women and youths can influence decision-making.”

The cotton sector in Zimbabwe was liberalised in 1994, following the commercialisation of the then Cotton Marketing Board (CMB) which became the Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (COTCCO).

The liberalisation meant that new players became buyers of cotton from small-scale farmers. The changes have been disadvantageous to small-scale cotton farmers who are being exploited by cotton buyers.

The cotton industry is marked by unjust national, regional and international trade policies for small-scale cotton farmers. The farmers have less bargaining power than the buyers. The negotiation process in the buying and selling of cotton takes place between two extremely unequal partners.

The farmers face challenges such as lack of organisation and manipulation by powerful players in the trade, which results in unfair contracts and low prices.

This state of affairs has led to unsustainable livelihoods and poverty in the rural areas where the farmers stay. In Zimbabwe, cotton is grown predominantly by small-scale communal farmers, with an estimated 220,000 households scattered across the country accounting for over 98 percent of the annual yield.

Gokwe and Sanyati areas are the prime cotton growing areas. People there live in poverty, with very little access to clean water and health facilities. Cotton is seen as their only way out of poverty.

ZIMCODD believes the cotton growers associations can assist farmers to effectively represent their interests. “There is a lack of a strong rural voice. The majority of smallholder farmers cannot influence agricultural policies to receive services that should be provided to make them successful farmers,” argued Matanga.

“They do not have much say in the pricing of both the inputs received in contract farming arrangements as well the outputs. The buyers are better organised at organisational and industry level through the Association of Cotton Buyers and Ginners of Zimbabwe.

“While some farmers are dependent on contract farming inputs because of their poverty, it could be true that the arrangement is perpetuating the farmers’ condition.”

ZIMCODD recently launched a translation of the WK Kellogg Foundation’s “Field Manual for Developing Commodity Associations”. The manual was translated into the vernacular Shona language as a practical guide for promoting effective organisation amongst smallholder farmers.

The organisation believes the manual will complement the producer associations initiative.

Zimbabwe National Farmers’ Union vice president Garikai Msika said unless issues to do with the production and marketing of cotton were addressed, cultivation of the crop as an agricultural option will falter.

“We have been getting a raw deal for a long time and we hope such help from civil society groups will help farmers get the true value of their crops,” Msika told IPS. “But that doesn’t mean that the government should not do anything for farmers.”

Msika wants to see the government raising the bar when it comes to the rewarding of farmers by bringing it on a par with other sub-Saharan countries.

Neighbouring Zambia is set to enact a Cotton Act meant safeguard the rights of farmers while, in Mozambique, the ministry of agriculture sets the producer price. In Uganda a Cotton Act that protects the interests of farmers is already in place.

Tanzania’s cotton industry is regulated by the long-established Tanzania Cotton Board, which has facilitated the growth of the industry in recent years. This has seen the country rising from seventh biggest lint exporter in Africa to third place in five years.

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Barely two weeks after the start of an official process to draw up a new constitution for Zimbabwe was delayed by supporters of Robert Mugabe, it faces another challenge: civil society organisation have launched a parallel constitutional project, saying the unity government’s parliamentary-led procedure is undemocratic, defective and will produce a flawed document.

Lovemore Madhuku: wants independent body to steer drafting of new constitution. Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) is leading an alternative constitutional process under the banner “Take Charge”. The NCA is a coalition which brings together women’s organisations, churches, opposition political parties, labour and student movements and other civic groups. In 1999, it worked with the MDC to reject a government draft constitution in a referendum handing President Mugabe his first defeat at the ballot box.

A 25-member parliamentary constitutional committee is leading the government process, which begins with four months of consultation, after which a draft will be produced. The draft will then be presented to a second All-Stakeholders Conference, followed by a month of debate in parliament. A referendum on the new constitution is expected in July 2010, and if it is approved new elections will then be held under Zimbabwe’s new constitution.

“We unreservedly reject the government led process for constitutional reform as outlined in Article 6 of the Global Political Agreement and strongly recommend that the current process being led by parliament and the inclusive government be immediately stopped and an independent, democratic constitutional reform process be initiated,” NCA Chairperson, Lovemore Madhuku, told IPS.

He further argued that it is not the job of politicians to write a constitution. “We did not vote for our MPs to write the constitution for us. For how long do we want our politicians to treat us like fools?”

In a draft resolution of civil society’s constitutional conference held Monday in Chitungwiza, just outside Harare, participants undertook to start an education campaign in August to encourage citizens to reject the constitutional process led by politicians.

“We resolve that we shall undertake and expand our civic education programme to explain to the people of Zimbabwe why they should reject a parliamentary-driven process,” read one of the resolutions.

The organisations also said if the government does not heed their call to abandon the parliamentary led process they will start a “No” vote campaign.

“We will actively seek a rejection of any draft constitution produced by the same process through campaigning for a No vote should that draft be brought to a referendum,” read one of the resolutions.

NCA has for years campaigned for a new and democratic constitution for Zimbabwe. Wellington Chibebe, secretary general of the country’s biggest labour federation, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions(ZCTU), told IPS that the government process is not representative enough.

“The process is hugely flawed it is hardly representative and does not recognise the civic society as active participants,” Chibhebhe said.

“The Select Committee is made up of only three political parties and we don’t know how that is global.”

Three of the country’s political parties signed a Global Political Agreement (GPA) IN September 2008 which led to the formation of a coalition government between Zanu PF and the two MDC parties. Article 6 of this agreement provides for the drafting of a people-driven constitution.

Takura Zhangazha, a Harare-based political analyst believes the process is heavily influenced by politicians.

“The parliamentary process is directly under the influence of the political parties and is therefore not as independent a process as democratically expected. It requires the setting up of an independent commission chaired by an independent person. This basically means that the parliamentary process is simply unacceptable,” Zhangazha told IPS.

Farai Maguwu, director of the Centre for Research and Development, is following both the government and civic society processes. He told IPS that the situation is healthy for the country’s democracy.

“Both processes are healthy for our democracy. We believe in what the NCA is doing but also want to get the truth. The government has a right to hold its view but does not have the right to write a constitution on behalf of the people but at the same time its process must be given a chance,” Muguwu told IPS.

By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Jul 20 2009 (IPS)

It’s a Thursday morning and the Mbare Musika Market is a hive of activity. Trucks, weighed down with assorted fruits and vegetables, negotiate their way through the congested market. You can get anything here — from vegetables, mealie-meal and cooking oil to television sets and clothing.

Thandeka Mlilo: The council collects rent, so what is the problem? Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

The council claims if the markets are left to operate they will cultivate criminality, create a health hazard and affect the council’s cash inflows as many of the traders do not pay tax. "We should not promote anarchy. Let us remove all the illegal structures as soon as possible and bring back order," Deputy Mayor Emmanuel Chiroto announced at a recent council meeting.

If implemented, the move is likely to affect many traders whose businesses and homes were violently destroyed during the infamous 2005 Operation Murambatsvina ("Restore Order), launched by President Robert Mugabe’s government to, ostensibly, decongest urban areas.

It was, however, widely regarded as punishment for urban dwellers who had overwhelmingly voted for the then-opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the March 2005 general elections. According to the United Nations, the campaign left over 700,000 people homeless and led to the demise of the enterprises of traders around the country.

But this time round informal traders are sticking to their guns. "This will do nothing except to kill us," Ruth Kasinauyo, a trader at Mupadzanhamo market, who looks after a family of five, told IPS. "I have nowhere to get an income. This is the only job I know.

"My husband went to the United Kingdom and never returned and I am the father and mother of the house. The city council must bring a bulldozer to move me from here."

The Mupedzanhamo market is a shanty market where second-hand clothes sourced from neighbouring countries are sold. Mupedzanhamo means "problem-solver" in the vernacular Shona language.

"I have since stopped looking for a job because this is now my life. I manage to pay school fees for my kids, buy food and pay rent," trader Tarisai Kasinauyo told IPS.

Just a stone’s throw from Mupedzanhamo market is Siyaso market, a colloquial Shona word for "leave it like that". This informal traders’ market was razed to the ground in 2005 during Operation Murambatsvina.

Meanwhile a thriving home industry has sprung up where furniture, building materials and vehicle repair workshops are housed. It is a sprawling open market of about 1,500 traders. The place can at best be described as a jungle of commodities sold in a dusty and dirty environment.

Most of the traders operating from this market are at home with this fact but argue that the city council should construct alternative markets before destroying the existing ones. "No one wants to operate in this dirty area, but what can we do if we have been forgotten?" commented one of the traders who asked for anonymity because of fear of retaliation.

Another trader, who for similar reasons was only willing to identify himself as Timothy, told IPS that he believes that the decision to destroy the markets is politically motivated. "They should forget about politics and let people concentrate on issues of survival. We are suffering.

"If they dare do it this time, we will fight back," he threatened.

Thandeka Mlilo is a food vendor. She supplies food to more than 100 traders a day. She feels the council’s move would be unfair to her survival. "We have licenses issued by them (the council) and they collect rents every month, so what is their problem? If they want to destroy the market, they must give us jobs first," Mlilo told IPS.

Council collects varying amounts of between 30 to 450 dollars per month in rentals. A Harare-based urban planner, Jerry Gotora, told the weekly Financial Gazette newspaper last month that council should stick to laid-down standards.

"This is how we end up destroying this country and then we blame politicians. It’s feasible for these so-called informal traders to build proper structures as prescribed and they must pay taxes because they are trading," Gotora insisted.

The council told IPS that the programme to destroy the markets will continue. "We are going to look at it on a case by case basis but we are removing everything that is not regularised as per council laws. We can’t have people doing what they want or buildings sprouting everywhere," Lesley Gwindi, the council’s public relations manager, told IPS.

Hopewell Gumbo, an economic and social justice activist, said the council decision will affect women the most. "Women are the worst affected by the economic problems this country is facing. This second Murambatsvina will be another blow which will obliterate lives," Gumbo told IPS.

"The solution does not lie in destruction but in providing adequate services to all in need."

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) statistics say 96 percent of Zimbabweans are unemployed. Most of these people depend solely on the informal sector for their livelihood. Many of them earn a living as flea market and tuck shop operators, furniture makers, and vegetable, curio and flower vendors.

Particularly in developing countries, small informal enterprises absorb many of the unemployed who can otherwise not find work.

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By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Jul 13 2009 (IPS)

The Zimbabwean government’s international investment conference at the end of last week did little to assuage fears that the country remains far away from re-establishing the rule of law and stopping land invasions.

Tafadzwa Muropa: "There is no real investment without the involvement of locals. What's in it for me?" Credit: Stanley Kwenda/IPS

Instead, President Robert Mugabe chose to tell the delegates that his government will not compensate white farmers who lost land during what his government has dubbed the "land reform programme".

The international investment conference was part of the coalition government’s effort to showcase the nation’s investment opportunities and revive the country’s comatose economy.

Investors have insisted that they want to see a return to the rule of law before they can put any money into Zimbabwe. The farm invasions constitute a major problem, with productivity at an all time low due to continuing disturbances. Invasions are continuing throughout the country.

Former legislator and social activist, Trudy Stevenson, told IPS the government did not say what the investors wanted to hear. "The investors are interested in the safety of their money and investment. They did not get the answers," Stevenson told IPS. "There is still a struggle over the rule of law, although the politicians would not want to say so."

Tony Hawkins, professor at the University of Zimbabwe Graduate School of Management, told IPS that the "government did little to change perceptions. The conference underlined the rift in the government as the leaders are not singing from the same hymn sheet.

"As long as there is uncertainty, things will remain as they are. There is need for the enactment of legislation which is investor-friendly and respects property rights."

Investors are also concerned about so-called empowerment laws which limit foreign ownership of companies. Minister of Mines Obert Mpofu sought to allay these fears by telling delegates that the new government is having a re-think on mining laws.

Under "indigenisation" laws, foreign companies cannot hold more than 49 percent of a business and must sell any stake above that to Zimbabweans. The government is also able to seize 25 percent of shares in some mines without paying.

"Government is in the process of reviewing some sections in the Mines and Minerals Act with the aim of coming up with a user-friendly operating environment," Mpofu told the conference. He added that careful consideration will be taken to ensure that the process of "indigenisation" is not at the expense of much-needed direct foreign investment.

"We are back to the drawing board – at stakeholder consultation stage – where submissions of all the views of interested parties are now being sought again in order to address all the concerns," he said.

Mining has become Zimbabwe's leading source of foreign exchange, with gold accounting for a third of exports, but political turmoil, unavailability of energy and unfavourable regulations have forced some mines to close. The government has launched a review of all mining contracts, saying it would introduce a "use it or lose it" policy.

"In doing so we want to ensure that all those that are performing will not be prejudiced," he claimed. "We are doing it in a manner that will not frighten people away."

But Mugabe in his opening remarks said the country’s "indigenisation" laws are an attempt to "democratise" the economic sector. "Such policies as the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act should not be viewed as obstacles to investment promotion.

"They should be welcomed as promoting greater participation of our people in the economy and, indeed, as the democratisation of our economic activity that builds up to good business returns for the investor," said Mugabe.

Tafadzwa Muropa, a Harare-based economic and social commentator, concurred with her leader. She told IPS that there can be no better investment other than that which involves local people. "My expectation is that local people must benefit from whatever investment coming into the country. There is no real investment without the involvement of locals.

"What’s in it for me, what’s in it for the informal businesses. We don’t want investment which comes in the form of aid," Muropa told IPS. However, she emphasised the need for order. "There is no investor who would want to invest in a country where there is political instability," she acknowledged.

A German investor, Willy Paps, who runs wildlife conversation businesses in the country, told the conference that, "if issues of property rights and rule of law are not addressed, then we are having a big party (at the conference) and nothing will come of it and I will take my money elsewhere."

Zimbabwe’s economy has plummeted to an all-time low over the past decade. According to the government’s Investor Prospectus, the country’s manufacturing sector is operating at 10 percent capacity. At its peak in 1990 it was the biggest contributor to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

The mining sector accounts for 3,8 percent of GDP and 4,5 percent employment and a third of total foreign exchange earnings as of 2007. Tourism accounted for 16, 1 percent of the GDP in 2007 but has suffered successive years of decline due to negative perceptions of the country.

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