By Artwel Chingwara Sithole in Chipinge| As Zimbabwe enters the last stretch of the 21- day lock down order, it is already glaring that poverty levels are worsening with fear of hunger is overtaking the fear for the deadly virus.
The fact that we still have 14 cases with only three confirmed deaths, brings in a lot of fallacy and misconceptions.
My refections in this article are motivated by my position as an Information Officer for the Platform for Youth and Community Development Trust.If my views were to fail generalisation, it is because most of my observations were confined to Chipinge district.
Interventions by the Zimbabwean government and the Cabinet -Task force on Covid-19 to bail out vulnerable families, though knee-jeck, are welcome.The gesture brings the government closer to its people interms of narrowing the gap between the have’s and the have nots.The stimulus package of 200 rtgs approved per person is considered insufficient because prizes of basics in shops and supermarkets have since been increased by unscrupulous elements within the business sector.
According to the Intergrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) conducted by the World Food Programme (WFP), the number of food insecure population has increased from 3.8 to 4.3 million.
Due to Covid -19 impact , the numbers may have increased to more than 6 million by now.
The jostling and stampede we are witnessing during ques in supermarkets and Wholesalers like Gain and NRichards to get subsidised mealie -meal is unprecedented.It has virtually become difficult for the public to comply with social and physical distance, even with the presence of the Zimbabwe Republic Police.Order is only temporarily restored where the military with armoury becomes involved.Zimbabean authorities need to take these stay -home or die attitudes seriously, if we need to continue with the committment to finish the remaining days of lock down and a possible extension with the same spirit.
We have also begun to observe that the public has started receiving food aid which had been temporarily shelved during the first days of the announced lock down. The general complaint by the public that is still to be resolved involve controversial lists for deserving beneficiaries in villages. Our community monitors under the banner of PYCD have already amicably handled complaints in which villagers who were being perceived to opposition members, were missing from registers while the politically correct appeared in more than one register.We have recorded some of these incidences and can confirm that staff and community monitors from Goal have resolved some of these anomalies.
Humanitarian organisations like GOAL and FACT are opening up to our teams and happy that we are successfully working with them to ensure that those who are deserving are not being left behind.
Platform for Youth and Community Development is working on a three week long strategy to help sharing accurate information about Covid -19, including observing and sharing our opinion and recommendations on how Zimbabwe can be part of the global world to fight the deadly virus.
An Oxfam report published before virtual meetings of Finance Ministers of the G20 group of leading developed and developing nations, International Monetary Fund and World Bank said by the time the pandemic is over ,half of the world’s population of 7.8 billion people could be living in poverty .
The research was conducted by King’s college London and Australian National university and confirmed that a 20 % drop in income as a result of a recession caused by COVID 19 would push an additional 548 million people below $5.50 a day – one of World Bank definition of poverty.