Several vulnerable and food-insecure families in affluent urban and peri-urban areas of Gweru have been left out of government and donor-driven social welfare, support programmes targeting extremely poor families, it has been established.
By Citizen Journalist
It has been established that organisations like WFP, and other support programmes excluded now on the increase due to the Covid-19 epidemic as they are generally not expected to be vulnerable in the areas they leave in.
Poor and unemployed families of vendors, youths, young and single mothers; unemployed, gardeners, the elderly, construction workers and many people who lost their jobs due to the corona virus epidemic have found the going very tough, as they now have very little or no money to buy food for their families, now require urgent social support.
Many venerable families prefer to stay in the affluent areas where they do not pay rent or where they have to pay rentals, accommodation is widely cheaper at USD10.00 per room per month compared to USD 40.00 per room per month in high-density areas where they could have been considered for social welfare assistance.
Maria Muchenje, (35), a domestic worker who lost her job, after her employer and her husband died of Covid-19 related illness in early last year, said that she is considering going back to her rural home in Masvingo as she has failed to secure better-paying jobs, surviving on piece jobs and selling vegetables at street corners.
Maria has not been able to access any help, from the government or donor agencies who she said do not consider her because she stays in one of the affluent areas where people are considered to be able to take care of themselves better.
“Many people like me who stay here in Daylesford are not considered for cash transfers because of our address,” said Maria.
In the first quarter, UNICEF Zimbabwe together with the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare and GOAL Zimbabwe rolled out an Emergency Social Cash Transfer Program (ESCT) to reduce food insecurity, improve dietary diversity, and maternal and child health outcomes of vulnerable households, whose situation has further deteriorated as a result of COVID-19 induced disruptions, vaccination resistance and delays, rising inflationary pressures and cost of leaving coupled with the generally poor state of the Zimbabwe economy.
The fragile Zimbabwean economy suffering a plethora of factors, though widely expected to rebound; now seeing the reversal of the pandemic’s staggering human and economic costs.
According to UNICEF, the programme primarily targeted households headed by the elderly (65 years and above), those with pregnant women or with children under the age of 2 years, persons living with disabilities and child-headed households.
Households deemed to be well-off will be excluded despite the category they fall in.
Despite the fact that UNICEF designed the programme to be flexible to accommodate all vulnerable households who may not fall under the above-mentioned categories, many families in suburbs like Southdowns, Windsor Park, Kopje, Ridgemont and several other peri-urban areas in Gweru have been left out.
Thomas Murembe, (33), a father of three, and a builders’ assistant, now staying at an unfinished house in Ridgemont Heights, in Gweru, said that he is now surviving on gathering grass and selling it to poultry farmers who use it as bedding for their chickens. On a good day, Thomas said he can make at least US$2.00, adding that the clients are generally hard to come by as many chicken farmers have not been keeping many birds due to the winter season.
He said that his family often go hungry and many days and he has not benefitted from any social welfare assistance.
Other social welfare beneficiaries have recently received a combination of monthly cash transfers and complimentary nutrition and child protection services, for a period of 12 months, from UNICEF and other partners.
Mike Mundofa, (45), who stays on a plot in Clonsilla, says the assessment teams for social welfare support programmes generally do not consider people like him as his area is generally considered to be affluent and that people who stay there are able to look after themselves.
“We used to work for the landlady who is now aged and she has stopped farming. She is not able to look after us and she too is not able to take care of herself.
“Many smallholder farmers in Clonsilla are not effectively utilising their plots and are generally not able to pay their workers often allowing them to stay on their plots for free. Most farmworkers end up vending, working for other people who can pay or getting involved in selling drugs, whose abuse by youths has been on the increase in the country,” he said.
Social protection responses to the emerging vulnerabilities in the urban and peri-urban areas have generally been controversial and widely left many deserving cases.
In Zimbabwe, assistance has been largely towards rural communities and recent research including the Urban Vulnerability Assessment, and the World Bank are pointing towards an increase in both prevalence and incidence of urban poverty. Assistance has also favoured people aligned to supporters of the ruling party and many opposition members have often been left out.
In Zimbabwe, the latest estimates show that about 45% of the total population are undernourished, while 49% of the population has fallen into extreme poverty. The country together with donor partners are challenged to come up with working mechanisms to address the deepening challenges of extreme food insecurity, selective and ineffective social protection and worsening vice and crime. Cash transfers have emerged as one working solution to reduce corruption, favouritism, fraud, among other primary objectives of extreme poverty reduction and alleviation and food insecurity reduction.
Zimbabwe first introduced the Harmonized Social Cash Transfer Programme (HSCT) in 2011, as an unconditional cash transfer programme targeting the extremely poor and labour-constrained households programme.
In Zimbabwe, the latest estimates show that about 45% of the total population are undernourished, while 49% of the population has fallen into extreme poverty. The country together with donor partners are challenged to come up with working mechanisms to address the deepening challenges of extreme food insecurity, selective and ineffective social protection and worsening vice and crime. Cash transfers have emerged as one working solution to reduce corruption, favouritism, fraud, among other primary objectives of extreme poverty reduction and alleviation and food insecurity reduction.
According to, Dr. Garima Bhalla of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
Under the HSCT Programme, beneficiary households receive a bi-monthly cash transfer that varies with household size. On average, the transfer value is about 20% of total pre-programme household consumption expenditure. Beneficiary eligibility criteria are two-fold: food poverty and labour-constrained status of households.
The latest Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee, ZimVAC reports that 2.4 million people in urban areas are food insecure, an increase of 12% compared to 2019.
Many Zimbabweans have been informal workers who lost their livelihoods as their vending sites were destroyed by the government as part of sweeping Covid-19 management, measures and restrictions.
Zimbabwe has registered an astronomical increase of extreme poverty reaching 7.9 million as the Covid-19 pandemic worsening the deepening economic and socio-political shocks the country is grappling with. According to the World Bank’s World Economic Report, 2021, almost half of Zimbabwe’s population fell into extreme poverty amid continued sharp price increases for goods and services, with increased job losses and falling wages and salaries in the formal and informal.
The recent Zimbabwe Economic Update, Overcoming Economic Challenges, Natural Disasters, and the Pandemic: Social and Economic Impacts, nearly 500,000 Zimbabwean households have at least one member who lost her or his job, causing many households to fall into poverty, and worsening the plight of the existing poverty levels. The analysis observed that the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the economy and general livelihoods, expanding the number of extremely poor citizens by 1.3 million, and increasing extreme poverty overall to 49% in 2020.
The pandemic also disrupted the provision of basic public services in health and wellness, the judiciary and correctional services, education and several social protections, affecting poor citizens the most.
If the endemic and rising extreme poverty and desperation in urban and peri-urban areas is not arrested, many families risk losing the battle to poverty, unemployment, food insecurity and the worsening Covid-19 pandemic.Supported by #Women In News
