By Beaven Dhliwayo.
Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)- – The Embassy of Sweden and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Wednesday signed a US$8 million grant giving a boost to the Zimbabwe Resilience Building Fund (ZRBF).
Launched in May 2016, ZRBF is a long-term development initiative with an overall objective of contributing to increased capacity of communities to protect development gains in the face of recurrent shocks and stresses enabling them to contribute to the economic development of Zimbabwe.
Addressing partners at the signing ceremony in Harare Ambassador of Sweden to Zimbabwe, Sofia Calltorp said the embassy believes that resilience-building is essential in Zimbabwe following economic hardships and the increased occurrence of extreme climatic events – such as protracted droughts, flooding and rising temperatures.
“The Embassy sees resilience-building as key to all work that it carries out. Addressing these pre-existing vulnerabilities shocks, be they climatic, socio-economic or political, is vital in ensuring that development gains are established, maintained and built upon.”
Calltorp added that Sweden will strive to ensure that gender equality is adequately integrated into the work of ZRBF including its implementing partners and consortia to ensure that Zimbabwean women equally benefit from this support as they often carry the brunt of shocks, stresses and disaster when it occurs.
The ZRBF is a five-year multi-donor fund managed by UNDP in close collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, as well as other national players such as the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate, Ministry of Public Services, Labour and Social Welfare, Department of Civil Protection and Food and Nutrition Council.
ZRBF with financial and technical support from European Union and UK Department of International Development (DFID) prioritizes 21 vulnerable districts targeting 800 000 people with a total budget of US$70 million over the life of the program.
Speaking at the same occasion UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative, Bishow Parajuli said since the start of the initiative over 400 labour endowed people in nine rural districts benefited from climate-smart agriculture, nutrition and livelihoods, productive asset creation, access to finance and value chain development and community based natural resources management.
“I would like to express sincere gratitude to the Embassy of Sweden for the new grant and commend the leadership of the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanization and Irrigation Development and appreciate the strong partnership with EU and DFID on establishing a robust national resilience building fund.
“I would like to reiterate that UNDP has set up a robust monitoring and evaluation system for this program to ensure strong transparency, value for money and accountability that shows strong impact in the livelihoods of the targeted communities”, he added.
In a speech read on his behalf the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture Mechanization and Irrigation Development Ringson Chitsiko, said this is a very important event in the development agenda for Zimbabwe.
“I must say that the ZRBF is an innovative approach to resilience building. I think we have heard development partners focusing mainly on humanitarian but with ZRBF we are seeing an approach focusing on development.
“The ZRBF has been in place for a year but we have seen notable progress and I must thank the coordinating team UNDP for building confidence in governments and donor community,” he said.
Zimbabwe in the past two decades has had to contend with droughts that have destroyed both plant and animal life.
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