CIVIL society organisations (CSOs) have said the government was caught ill-prepared to deal with the El Niño-induced drought despite receiving several warnings.
Zimbabwe is grappling with the worst effects of climate change, which have left over five million citizens in urgent need of food aid.
Government last year claimed that it was ready to deal with the effects of the El Niño-induced drought.
Speaking during a Learning, Information and Knowledge Exchange Sessions platform convened by Accountability Lab Zimbabwe (ALZ) in Harare yesterday, CSOs said there was a need to come up with permanent solutions to effectively deal with drought and climate change.
“We haven’t experienced an intense El Niño so far. And in fact according to the scientists who follow the El Niño system we are actually out of El Niño right now,” Amalima Loko deputy chief of party, Mary-Jane Ncube said.
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“So now what we are suffering from is how prepared we were when we entered the El Niño scenario.
“And the truth is, as everybody has stated in this room, we were not prepared because we keep doing the same things over and over again.”
Former projects co-ordinator with ActionAid International Zimbabwe, Darlington Chidarara, implored CSOs to help the government to come up with solutions to mitigate the effects of climate change-induced disasters such as droughts.
“We can also work on campaigns that are there to make sure that information goes to everyone. Strong campaigns that are rooted within the people can also assist in terms of how we can prepare during droughts as well as climate change,” Chidarara said.
“And of course we can collaborate with the government in terms of information in terms of how we package our information and also let's not forget those who are impacted.
“We also need to make an example that when we are packaging this information, it can be needs driven because we do not come to the CSOs as all-knowing.”
Transparency International Zimbabwe programmes co-ordinator Nqobani Tshabangu said it was disheartening that food aid was being politicised when citizens were facing hunger.
“The second issue is that the government, in some instances, will over-rely on what we call a sole source procurement model or method,” Tshabangu said.
“This method reduces the aspect of competition, money-for-money and other aspects that are actually tenets that are important in the procurement aspect.”
ALZ deputy country director Beloved Chiweshe said CSOs wanted to complement the government “as actors of both good governance and development.”
“Specifically for Accountability Lab, our interest is to ensure accountability in the drought response, especially the resources that the government will avail to mitigate the consequences of drought.”
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has since declared the drought a state of national disaster and appealed for US$3 billion for food assistance.
