The country faces a variety of difficult economic, political and social challenges as it struggles with an unsustainable fiscal deficit, oppression, increasing mortality rates and a worsening education system. Zimbabwe's current crisis, described by some observers as the country's worst humanitarian crisis since independence in 1980, has been attributed to government gross mismanagement, severe nationwide drought and the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Life expectancy at birth for males in Zimbabwe has dramatically declined since 1990, from 60 to 37, the lowest in the world. Life expectancy for females is even lower at 34 years. Concurrently, the infant mortality rate has climbed from 53 to 81 deaths per 1,000 live births in the same period. Currently, 1.8 million Zimbabweans living with HIV lack access to anti-retroviral drugs since 2006.
Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) ranked Zimbabwe in 2007 as one of its "Top 10" underreported health crises in the world. Handicapped by dire shortages of medical supplies and equipment - from sutures and intravenous fluids, to HIV testing kits and renal dialysis chemicals - most public health programs have ground to a halt. In addition to the lack of medicine and supplies, there has been a massive exodus of skilled health personnel, which has contributed to the wider deterioration of the public health sector. The cost of access to the medical system continues to soar and highly preventable deaths continue.
The failing infrastructure is a victim of the turbulent political climate. Thousands live without access to clean water and sewage spills have contaminated most reservoirs in the nation. Zimbabwe has seen drastic increases in the number of reported cases of serious diarrhoea, cholera, anthrax and childhood epidemics like measles. Drugs and medicines to treat these and other diseases are in very short supply.
An almost empty Zimbabwean classroom
Once a leader in Africa in education, Zimbabwe has fallen behind since the economic changes in 2000. Teachers have gone on strike and now on a go-slow strike because of low pay, starving students are unable to concentrate and the price of uniforms has soared, making education a luxury. Teachers have been one of the main targets of Robert Mugabe's attacks because he suspected they did not support him strongly enough.
Aside from the widening health and education crisis, there are the broader concerns of poverty, hunger, and homelessness. While the EU and the US provide humanitarian food aid, badly needed support from the International Monetary Fund has been suspended because of the Zimbabwean government's arrears on past loans and its unwillingness to enact reforms that would stabilize the economy. Not only has the Zimbabwean government (till February 2009) been indifferent to the poverty, malnutrition, and homelessness plaguing its population- it has been a contributing factor. The government initiative Murambatsvina (Drive Out Filth) saw hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans living in and around Harare, lose their homes, possessions and livelihoods.
Desperate Zimbabweans fleeing the country.
As people fled a progressively more desperate situation, large scale migration of Zimbabweans to surrounding countries and beyond has increased in recent years. For those who remain in Zimbabwe, they witnessed widespread systematic and escalating violations of human rights as a punitive measure for giving the opposition majority vote.
Now, with an inclusive Government in place, Mugabe and his cronies remain reluctant to implement an agreement that gave birth to the present Government. Mugabe is yet to realize that the former opposition is not a junior but an equal partner in the new government. His conduct so far, demonstrates lack of sincerity and commitment to an agreement he signed last September.
With this lack of commitment the international community has remained on the sidelines promising to assist the country only when it is convinced their financial aid would not be going to finance the very culprits that led the country to the present crisis. In the meantime, the victims of this impasse remain the ordinary people of Zimbabwe.
THE new power-sharing government in Zimbabwe faces critical challenges in restoring basic social and economic institutions for the country's population. The unity arrangement, which saw the swearing-in of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangiriai and his opposition counterparts into key government positions, brought a wave of optimism to a country in desperate need of health and education sector reform.
Zimbabweans wait to get water from a Unicef water point in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.
In Harare, the nation’s capital, there is an almost total shut-down of the public water supply. Desperate residents are forced to dig shallow wells or source water from contaminated rivers and streams, exacerbating the risk of a serious health disaster.
The situation in hospitals remain dire. Most of the recent cholera sufferers were turned away from hospitals because of lack of medicine and fear of further spread of the disease. Despite the government’s incentive of $100 United States Dollars (USD) to return, many teachers and principals are yet to return to their classrooms after fleeing to neighbouring countries to work as gardeners and farm labourers. In the meantime, their malnourished students are spending their days looking for wild fruits.
As political friction continues between President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF and Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the implementation of government interventions to address the cholera outbreak, distribute HIV medication and promote disease awareness campaigns have remained seriously impeded. The role of international humanitarian groups in Zimbabwe has become more critical than ever before.
ZIA Network help build foundations of healthy democracies by protecting the rights of citizens and free expression to hold those in power accountable
Humanitarian Appeals are revised regularly. The latest CAP on Zimbabwe is available on
Full project details can be viewed, downloaded and printed from www.reliefweb.int/fts
Note: The full text of this appeal is available on-line in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format and may also be downloaded in zipped MS Word format.
Full Revised Appeal [pdf* format] [zipped MS Word format]
* Get the Adobe Acrobat Viewer (free)
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