The Zimbabwean Government last week set in motion its National Contigency Plan to help it counter climate hazards before reaching peak levels to prevent the loss of life and people’s livelihoods.
By Kudakwashe Pembere
Responding to questions from legislators last week, Public Service, Labour, and Social Welfare Minister, Cde July Moyo, said the Civil Protection Unit (CPU) activated a contingency plan to tackle harsh weather impacts on people.
We have a contingency plan, which is drawn and led by the Civil Protection Unit in the Ministry of Local Government. Every year, they make sure that by September, they plan in terms of how to deal with climate change-induced disasters, which can be in two parts, either floods or drought,” he said. “This can spread to not just people but also affect animals and other economic sectors of this country.”
Minister Moyo noted that the contingency plan has several components including ensuring that lives are not lost during the disasters.
“If people survive a storm or a disaster like what we have had, then the issue of properties can be addressed in several ways. For the houses that are destroyed, there is a quick reaction that can be done by either the Civil Protection Unit or the Department of Social Welfare to provide tents,” said Cde Moyo.
“Right now, those two organisations are already working so that we can see whether we can provide tents. The tents are not made in Zimbabwe, so normally the Civil Protection Unit is empowered to work with donor agencies that are part of the civil protection system of this country.”
A Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official during the drafting of the annex part of the National Contigency plan was for the country to have its own anticipatory action.
“We are here with the consortium of partners such as the World Food Programme, the International Federation of the Red Cross together with National Red Cross Society and Government and different Government Ministries led by the DCP to develop a roadmap on anticipatory action for Zimbabwe.
“It is going to be a national roadmap. It is going to pave the way forward for anticipatory action in the country,” she said. She noted that this anticipatory action plan came on the back of observations that many a Zimbabweans have been losing their properties to climate hazards.
“When we say anticipatory action, we really mean that we should be acting as a humanitarian community before disasters negatively impact livelihoods.
” And we dont just mean agricultural livelihoods,but we also mean vulnerable households, the last mile community. All vulnerable households and people who really lose their assets every-time a major climate hazard occurs,” she said.
With Zimbabwe battling the El Nino and having experienced the devastating impact of the Cyclone Idai in 2019, concern has been over Government’s ill-preparedness against climate hazards. The FAO official said this document was meant to help people protect their properties.
“Everytime we have drought, floods, cyclones, we all know vulnerable communities lose their assets such as livestock, farming equipment, valuable items from their homes, sometimes important documents like their ID documents.
” So what we are trying to do here together with partners, DCP is to create this roadmap which will be a policy document going forward in the country to make sure that if we are going to be responding, we actually respond before the peak impact of this hazard, before communities lose what’s important to them.
“And by this we hope to protect livelihoods, development gains and create sustainable livelihoods,” said the official.
With US$2.1 million in financial support coming from the European Union, FAO, the WFP and IFRC are the technical partners to Government in implementing the tenets of this National Contingency Plan.
“FAO, WFP, IFRC with funding from the European Union which funded the first anticipatory project in the region and Zimbabwe is one of the countries we are implementing this project in.
“We are providing technical support and financial support from the EU to create these important technical documents on anticipatory action, repositories for drought, for anticipatory action, for different hazards, and regional guidelines to create knowledge and build capacity not only in Zimbabwe but other SADC member states,” said the FAO official. “In this project from the EU itself, it is around €2million but partners themselves individually have other donors supporting them with different amounts of funding.”
