Chronicle Editor
Yoliswa Dube-Moyo, Matabeleland South Bureau Chief
ABOUT 350 households in Gwanda District are set to benefit from a livelihoods and resilience scaling up programme by the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC). The programme, which is financed through the humanitarian services, received funding from the Evangelical Lutheran Mission from Finland. The humanitarian and development programme is targeting 1 925 beneficiaries.
In a communique to the District Development Committee, the ZCC said the objective of the programme is to improve livelihoods and build resilience of vulnerable populations in targeted communities. “The duration of the programme is four years starting from March 2022 to 2025,” read the communique.
The programme is meant to develop the livelihoods of communities and address issues relating to disaster risk reduction, gender and conservation farming among other issues.
“The ZCC is a communion of churches founded in 1964 from the Rhodesia Missionary Conference and then the Rhodesia Christian Council to confess the triune God; God the Father through whom all things are created, the Lord Jesus Christ through whom all people and creation are saved and the Holy Spirit through whom all creation is nurtured and sanctified,” read the communique.
In a recent interview, Zanu-PF Second Secretary, Cde Kembo Mohadi said Government and its partners should always involve traditional leaders in key infrastructure and community development projects. Cde Mohadi said the Second Republic implemented a number of infrastructure development programs countrywide, whose success hinged on Zimbabweans working together.
He said the Government had made great strides towards achieving that feat in line with the envisaged Vision 2030 that seeks to make Zimbabwe an upper-middle-class economy. “You will note that traditional leaders are the custodians of the people and they need to be there when we are talking about development matters,” said Cde Mohadi.
“They have to be taken on board from the onset because they are the people that can drive the engine of development. So far, as a Zanu-PF Government, we have covered a lot of ground on infrastructure development countrywide and in Matabeleland South where we are building dams and rebuilding irrigation schemes.”
He said irrigation was a very critical catalyst for alleviating the effects of recurrent droughts. After completing dams and agriculture-related infrastructure, Cde Mohadi said the focus will be on the construction of more modern roads.
He said good roads would help improve the food supply value chain and create linkages between the farmers and the markets for agricultural produce. “Droughts have been affecting us periodically and we have said to ourselves, let’s start with infrastructure development,” said Cde Mohadi.
“To start with, we thought of the building of dams and harnessing water from the rivers and other water bodies for amplified smart agriculture irrigation development. We have completed constructing a number of dams, while others are still under construction.
“We will do that, and once you have developed the agriculture sector in that manner, it has to be taken somewhere. This is where massive road construction will come in to link the farmers and the local and export markets.”
Cde Mohadi said soon more telecommunications boosters will be erected in areas where there are deficiencies to ensure that there was a total communication signal coverage nationwide. – @Yolisswa
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