U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Southern Africa

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SOUTHERN AFRICA
IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 145
1 - 5 September 2003


CONTENTS:

ZIMBABWE: Mass action threatened over cash shortage
ZAMBIA: Strikers reject govt warning
SOUTHERN AFRICA: C-SAFE to improve resilience to food-security shocks
SWAZILAND: Business responds to AIDS challenge
NAMIBIA: Growing concern over food-security situation
MOZAMBIQUE: Legal reform launched to protect children
MALAWI: Food aid agencies seek to consolidate gains
BOTSWANA: First female paramount chief welcomed

ZIMBABWE: Mass action threatened over cash shortage

Zimbabwe's Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) on Friday said a decision would
be reached this weekend on whether its members would go ahead with mass
action to protest acute currency shortages in the country.

"ZCTU will hold a general council meeting on Saturday, which is expected
to deliver concrete plans with regards to when the action will go ahead.
There is as yet no fixed date, but we will be relying on input from the
various labour forums, which will guide what form the mass action should
take," ZCTU general-secretary Wellington Chibebe told IRIN.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36418

Resettled farmers returning to communal areas

Zimbabwe's fast-track land reform programme was meant to benefit landless
people forced to live in congested communal areas, but many of the
supposed beneficiaries are turning their backs on their new land.

On Thursday IRIN reported the shortcomings of President Robert Mugabe's
accelerated land redistribution programme.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36395


Economic outlook gloomy

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) this week said it was unlikely any
significant progress would be made in resolving Zimbabwe's political
crisis this year.

"As a result of the political crisis and poor economic policy, we forecast
that real GDP will contract by 13.1 percent in 2003 and 6.1 percent in
2004; inflation will continue to soar, averaging 368 percent in 2003 and
444 percent in 2004," the EIU said.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36393


MDC makes gains, despite low turnout

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) made a strong showing
in weekend municipal elections, but the polls were marred by a low voter
turnout among weary Zimbabweans.

The MDC won six out of the seven contested executive mayoral posts, but in
a result which it has threatened not to recognise, lost in the Midlands
town of Kwekwe, where high levels of intimidation and violence were
reported by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, an independent election
observer body.

The MDC won 135 out of 267 council wards up for grabs in 21 towns and
cities, while the ruling ZANU-PF took 88. However, even before the
elections began, ZANU-PF already had 44 council wards under its belt, and
the executive mayoral post in Bindura, about 80 km north of Harare.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36347

UN forced to close provincial field offices

On Tuesday IRIN reported on the closure of the UN Relief and Recovery Unit
(RRU) in Zimbabwe provincial field offices in Zimbabwe. The RRU
coordinates and monitor the use of donor-funded humanitarian aid.

In the latest Zimbabwe Humanitarian Situation Report released this week,
the RRU said the government had requested that its "field offices be
closed from mid-August".

"The government of Zimbabwe's position is that not all procedures for the
establishment of this field presence had been properly followed. All RRU
field staff have been recalled to Harare while negotiations proceed," the
situation report said.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36344

ZAMBIA: Strikers reject govt warning

Zambia's 120,000 striking public servants on Thursday dismissed a
government threat they would be sacked if they did not return to work, and
called instead for the authorities to honour an agreement to pay their
housing benefits.

"There is total chaos in the country - let them just pay and the workers
will go back to work," Civil Servants and Allied Workers Union of Zambia
(CSUZ) secretary-general, Darrison Chaala, told IRIN.

The government on Wednesday described the industrial action launched on 26
August as illegal. "I am, therefore, advising all striking workers to
return to work forthwith or face the consequences of their illegal
action," Vice-President Nevers Mumba said in a national address.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36397

Politicians urged to end by-election violence

A leading election monitoring group has called for politicians to rein in
their supporters after clashes between ruling Movement for Multi-party
Democracy (MMD) and opposition militants in Zambia's North Western and
Western provinces ahead of two by-elections this month.

Alfred Chanda, head of the Foundation for a Democratic Process (FODEP),
told IRIN on Tuesday: "We as FODEP and other election monitoring groups
are hopeful that the violence will not continue until election day, but
looking at the issue realistically, the violence is likely to continue."

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36348

Development partners demand curbs on govt spending

The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) decision to withhold
balance-of-payments support for Zambia, causing other major donors to
follow suit, has hurt ordinary Zambians, an activist told IRIN on Monday.

Charity Musamba, coordinator of the debt relief NGO, Jubilee Zambia, said
the decision to punish Zambia for the government's overspending was not
solving the problem of budget overruns, nor was it helping the country's
efforts to reduce poverty.

This follows weekend reports that the government was now committed to
getting back on track with IMF programmes.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36315

SOUTHERN AFRICA: C-SAFE to improve resilience to food-security shocks

With systems in place and food commodities already in countries, the
Consortium for Southern Africa's Food Emergency (C-SAFE) says its aid
programmes are "moving full-speed ahead".

In its latest situation report, the organisation said its current
programmes reflected the "changing food-security environment in each of
the C-SAFE countries, with Zimbabwe still in the emergency mode (continued
general and supplementary feeding) and Malawi and Zambia making a dramatic
shift towards objectives two and three [of C-SAFE's programmes], namely,
increasing productive assets ... and improving community resilience to
food-security shocks".

In practice this meant there would be a greater focus on nutritional and
HIV/AIDS education aimed at improving and maintaining the nutritional
status of vulnerable groups.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36417

Local agricultural knowledge key to fighting HIV/AIDS

The explosive impact of HIV/AIDS on food security in Africa is now well
recognised. But little has been done to empower rural communities with
local resources to cope with this crisis, a report has found.

"The tendency is for donors and NGOs to merely assist by providing aid.
While this is needed, people also have the capacities to cope, and their
approaches are sometimes more tangible. Sometimes aid and [agricultural]
policies don't reach the most vulnerable," Josep Gari, author of the
report commissioned by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told
IRIN.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36398

SWAZILAND: Business responds to AIDS challenge

Alarmed by the impact of AIDS on the workforce, Swaziland's business
community is taking the lead in providing health programmes to safeguard
workers and management.

"Businesses are understanding that it can't be left to government to find
a solution," Musa Hlope, former executive director of the Federation of
Swaziland Employers (FSE) told IRIN.

By studying how individual firms are promoting the AIDS awareness message,
and managing solutions, Swazi businesses have become proactive, after
initially appearing to be overwhelmed by the pandemic.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36374

Mourning women ordered to King's party

Widows have been ordered to remove their black mourning gowns to celebrate
King Mswati's 35th birthday this week, but will remain disqualified from
standing in next month's parliamentary elections.

"The country will be celebrating, and therefore all widows are expected to
take off their mourning gowns," said traditional leader Jim Gama in an
announcement on government radio. Gama, the governor of Ludzidzini royal
village, is one of the country's most powerful authorities. His
pronouncements carry the weight of a fiat from King Mswati III.

The Times of Swaziland, the country's only independent daily,
characterised the women's situation as "house arrest".

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36320


NAMIBIA: Growing concern over food-security situation

On Wednesday the World Food Programme (WFP) told IRIN Namibia's food
security situation was causing growing concern as news reports point to a
higher than expected cereal deficit in the Caprivi region.

IRIN reported earlier this month that the country's Emergency Management
Unit (EMU) believed some 400,000 people across the country may need food
aid distributions this year, due to crop failures caused by persistent
drought.

EMU official Gabriel Kangowa told IRIN that "Katima Mulilo [in the
Caprivi] is very unique - not only have they suffered drought there, but
there was this recent flood. But otherwise, the other regions are all
facing the same problem".

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36370

MOZAMBIQUE: Legal reform launched to protect children

An initiative that strengthens the legal system to better safeguard
children's rights was launched on Monday by the Mozambican government,
supported by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

"We welcome the work done so far. But we think greater emphasis should be
given to strengthening the safeguards for their access to education, to
health and other social services, to improve the legal protection of all
children from neglect, abuse and exploitation, and to give them
opportunities to participate in decisions which affect their lives,"
UNICEF Representative Marie-Pierre Poirier said in a statement.

Although Mozambique's economy has shown a decade of strong growth, wealth
is unevenly distributed and children remain vulnerable.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36317

MALAWI: Food aid agencies seek to consolidate gains

Malawi has mostly recovered from last year's food crisis that at its
height threatened 3.3 million people, but a large vulnerable population
still needs humanitarian aid.

World Food Programme (WFP) head of programmes in Malawi, Lola Castro, said
her agency was planning to feed about 670,000 people through targeted
distributions to identified vulnerable groups from July 2003 to June 2004.

Castro stressed that "the 670,000 [beneficiaries] is the total number of
people who will receive food over the 12 months" of the WFP's emergency
operation.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36338

BOTSWANA: First female paramount chief welcomed

When the traditional leopard skin, the sign of authority, was draped
around her shoulders at the weekend, Kgosi Mosadi Seboko not only became
the paramount chief of Botswana's Bagamalete people, but also a powerful
symbol of change for women.

A woman has never assumed the position of a paramount chief. Traditionally
women were not even allowed to attend the village kgotla (Setswana word
meaning village meeting) unless they were invited to give evidence during
the settlement of disputes. The ascension of Kgosi (chief) Mosadi to head
a Kgotla has therefore broken new ground.

More details: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=36372


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2003


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