Mbire: Zim’s youngest, most organised district

uninhabitable.
Very few people, mainly hunters and gatherers settled in this part of the Zambezi Valley, then called the Dande communal lands, as it took quite some courage and desperation to stay there.
At independence in 1980, the Government made spirited efforts to open up the land and clear tsetse flies, while at the same time building schools for those who started trickling there.
Many non-governmental organisations shunned the area too, save for a small one called the Lower Guruve Development Association that used its meagre resource to uplift the lives of the people complimenting Government efforts.
Today, the land has been cleared of the tsetse fly menace and become highly populated so much that signs of land pressure are beginning to manifest themselves.
About 10 years ago, the vast swathe of land condemned into a hot area by geography, was cut off from Guruve to become a stand alone district, the Mbire District.
Surprisingly, Mbire has the distinction of being the most organised district with villagers still operating communally in a country where capitalism has taken over everything.
For the same reasons Minister of Local Government has conferred Mbire Rural District Council this year’s best performing rural council in the country, thanks to sustainable wildlife farming.
But the district, which is renowned for wildlife farming has also another distinction of having 3km of tarred road, the rest is dusty.
The community has bought a tow grader, tractors and lorries to help itself. It has built schools, clinics, grinding mills and offices using wildlife funds.
Driving down the valley provides a perfect opportunity on how a local NGO, Lower Guruve Development Association has transformed livelihood of villagers in the district.
The local NGO has played a crucial role in facilitating developmental projects and has worked closely co-NGOs FAO.
LGDA has grown with Mbire district so much that you cannot talk of Mbire without talking of it. The problem is limited resources.
One might find it difficult to mention developments taking place in Mbire district excluding the services of LGDA as it has deep-rooted interests in the valley even before the district was demarcated.
LGDA director General Ephraim Murendo says the idea to demarcate Mbire from Guruve district emerged in review meetings which intended to seek progress made by the local NGO.
He said the idea shot up after realising that the administration and the ground surviving in different worlds since the danger was that the two places were far placed apart geographically and climatic.
“In one of our review meetings to measure progress in the then Lower Guruve as an NGO we realised that Mbire and Guruve districts had different problems chiefly climatic and geographical ones.
“We also noticed with concern that administration was losing touch with reality on the ground creating a difficult operational environment for our projects there.
“As a developmental NGO we had no power but we facilitated the dialogue to meet the District and Provincial Administrators until the district was demarcated in 2001”, said Murendo.
This gave birth to an intact and robust district, a district of historical and cultural wealth.
Mbire district has a type of grass, harvested exclusively by women past their menopause and deftly prepared it into salt.
This reflects value given vast salt pans Mbire has, a crucial component in the diet of our culture as bases of originality.
Back to square one!
Since time immemorial LGDA has since become a mainstay in Mbire district facilitating chiefly humanitarian developmental projects not forgetting relief when it arises.
Admittedly, the local NGO has done a lot to improve the livelihood of the villagers in Mbire who are always the suffering grass in their motherland.
The valley is renowned for prime cotton farming and rearing of large herds of cattle and goats not forgetting wildlife as the chief cash cow for the council’s revenue. This has also attracted brisk business in goat and cattle dealings attracting stock theft too.
Gullible stock dealers are languishing in poverty after being fleeced of their goats and cattle while cotton companies on the other side of the coin are doctoring the contracts they have with farmers taking advantage of their level of literacy and misrepresent them.
Far away from the fast placed life of Harare or any city for that matter, intermittent droughts, massive siltation, erratic rainfall patterns, decline in soil fertility, coupled with general economic problems, has left villagers living abject poverty and this alarmed the intervention of LGDA as they are not only close to the community but also on the ground.
To date, local NGO has facilitated a lot of projects working closely with various humanitarian organisations in order to promote attitude change and improve their way of living to people and communities in the district.
The villagers who moved to the area after independence relied on fertiliser-free cotton production but LGDA having noticed that modern Mbire has been affected by anti-poaching trends, climatic change and population explosion last year disbursed 80 000 metric tonnes of fertiliser and sorghum seed to the villagers in the district.
This has seen Mbire benefiting 2 000 tonnes of fertilisers and sorghum seed from the same humanitarian organisation.
“We have done a lot of projects in Mbire and some parts of Guruve and in some cases we do facilitate some projects from our donors or even fellow NGOs as we already have the basis of projects.
“We have a project called ‘wash’ which has seen a lot of villagers in wards 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, and15 benefiting from rehabilitation of boreholes”, says Mr Murendo.
“The organisation has worked with school children, orphanages, psycho-social support as well as food security with a garden project. We are a into piggery, chicken and goats project as well and trade justice to create a conducive marketing environment fair trade”, he added.
However, LGDA is operating under a harsh environment which has seen its vehicles depreciating due do bed roads given that the district has only 3km or tarred road, while rising temperature presents a continuing menace to the employee.
This has raised calls for donors interested in funding projects in such an environment to consider this plight on the side of the facilitator for smooth operation and service delivery.
Murendo added that LGDA has many deep-rooted projects which risk collapsing as a result of funding problems.
He said his organisation is still intact and ready for any humanitarian assignment in the district.
We can spend acres of space penning down the achievements and developments made by LGDA in the district.
Mbire RDC chairman Mr Koni Dhoro acknowledged LGDA as the brains that gave birth to Mbire district, describing the humanitarian organisation as an NGO par excellence.
“Let me take this opportunity to thank Mr Murendo (LGDA) for having facilitated the rise of Mbire district. “This is not enough since we have benefited a lot from this local NGO, which now acts as a facilitator for other donors.
“We have learnt a lot of things from this organisation.
“Let’s respect the girl child. “Ngati kurei”, said Koni.