We are facing a real existential threat!

In 1960, Queen Elizabeth embarked on a whirlwind three-week tour of the Central African Federation — an amalgam of three states that had been fashioned out of Nyasaland (now Malawi), Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in 1953 — which was considered one of the prized gems in Britain’s imperial crown.

During her eventful odyssey, she had the opportunity to open the then-Central African Trade Fair on May 11, which continues to run to this day as the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair.

Six days later, on May 17, her journey took her to Kariba, where she pushed the button to start the second generator of a hydroelectric project that had the enviable distinction of supplying what at the time was the world’s cheapest electricity.

So important was this piece of infrastructure to colonial designs that the World Bank (known as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development then) had to shell out close to £30 million of the £80 million needed for the project.

With adequate financial resources, Impresit, an Italian consortium, naturally raced through the project in the four-year period from 1956 to1960.

Upon completion, Kariba Dam — also reputed to be the largest man-made lake in the world — was a marvel, which symbolised the long-term aspirations of colonial and imperial interests, as well as the gargantuan-scale exploitation of resources in this part of the world. The electricity from this massive project was used to power the rapacious colonial mining and industrial machine.

For instance, the first generator at the plant, which had been switched on on December 28, 1959, first relayed power to mines in Zambia’s Copperbelt region.

So, damming the Zambezi River — the fourth-longest on the continent, beginning on the Central African Plateau (Mwinilunga) in north-western Zambia and coursing through Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique before emptying in the Indian Ocean — was man’s best solution to providing sustainable electricity.

Or was it?

For years, Kariba served us well.

In fact, until recently, it was the country’s workhorse, producing more than 1 000 megawatts (MW) in base-load power to anchor local supplies, particularly at a time when the old power plants at the Hwange Power Station had become increasingly unreliable.

A changing world

But it was all vanity.

The world is changing, and climate change has become a new reality that poses an existential threat to life as we know it.

As Bishop Lazi writes this, water levels in Kariba have been dropping precipitously, raising the spectre that they will fall below the minimum operating level.

Our neighbours Zambia, who rely on hydroelectric power for more than 80 percent of their needs, are having it rough, with a power deficit of almost 1 200MW prompting painfully long hours of load-shedding.

They now face the grim prospect of shutting down their plant at Kariba within the next two weeks.

On the Zimbabwean side, power generation from Kariba has dropped to about 215MW, and might fall even further, as water levels continue to recede. How things have changed!

It reminded the Bishop of the parable of the rich fool, in Luke 12 verses16-21: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

Had it not been for President ED’s wise leadership, through which he hastily consummated the US$1,3 billion deal that built Hwange Power Station’s Units 7 and 8 with support from our friends from the East, the Chinese, we would be in a worse off position.

The fault at Hwange’s Unit 8 a fortnight ago, which resulted in rolling power blackouts, gave us a taste of what situation we would have been in if these critical investments had been postponed or delayed.

Today, we are getting 600MW from the two new units, lifting output from the coal-fired power station to more than 1 000MW, thereby anchoring local supplies.

Comfortingly, there are plenty of other projects in the pipeline, such as the repowering of Hwange Power Station’s Units 1-6 and investments in new power plants by India’s Jindal Steel & Power; the envisaged floating solar panels at Kariba; continued investments in solar energy by independent power producers; as well as hydroelectric projects on water bodies such as Lake Gwayi-Shangani and Mutirikwi, which will be able to generate substantial amounts of electricity needed to power our economic vision in the medium to long term. The hard work to actualise the ambitious projects, begins now.

Potential tragedy

Tied to the vagaries of a fast-changing climate, such as scant rains and scorching temperatures that were induced by the El Niño weather phenomenon in the 2023/2024 cropping season, is food and water insecurity, which is presently threatening the lives and livelihoods of about 30 million of the 73 million people who live in Southern Africa.

Zimbabwe declared a State of National Disaster earlier in the year to pave the way for mobilisation of resources to help food-insecure communities; so, too, did Namibia, Malawi and Zambia.

That February — the month when our fields and crops were supposed to receive critical rains — was considered the driest it had ever been in 100 years, and that, as Zimbabwe, we faced another drought as recent as 2018/2019, which again led to the declaration of a State of National Disaster in August 2019, tells us all we need to know about the regularity, intensity and duration of the climate change-induced droughts that are now plaguing the region.

What is worse is that in March 2019, we were hit by Cyclone Idai, which experts claimed was the worst weather-related disaster to affect the Southern Hemisphere.

So, inasmuch as we might want to ignore it, climate change is real and will materially affect our lives going forward.

Hope and expectation

But the oracles have spoken: They now expect us to have good rains in the 2024/2025 cropping season, which will provide us with the much-needed relief.

In addition to providing pastures for our livestock, it will replenish our many water bodies, not least Kariba, helping to increase electricity generation.

We, however, should not rest on our laurels.

The most sustainable solution, as ED continues to say, is to wean ourselves from rain-fed agriculture by putting 350 000 hectares under irrigation at least by next year. A lot of ground has already been covered by the Second Republic, as the amount of land under irrigation has expanded by 24 percent since 2019, representing the fastest increase since independence.

Incredible!

And Zimbabwe is now on the cusp of another record wheat haul — estimated to be over 600 000 tonnes — owing to new and resuscitated irrigation schemes.

Was it not last month that we all witnessed the recommissioning of the Holy Cross Dam in Chirumhanzu, Midlands province, which provides water to a 400-hectare irrigation scheme? So, we need to double down to ensure that we build resilience by insulating ourselves from the vagaries of climate change.

It can and will be done.

The fact that we have close to 10 600 water bodies that are enough to irrigate two million hectares should give us hope.

None but ourselves

To extricate ourselves from the current seemingly apocalyptic situation and achieve our lofty goals, we have to look no further than ourselves. This is the greatest lesson we have learnt in the last five years.

The milestones we have achieved have been driven by domestic resources and assistance from cooperating partners.

For all its posturing as a financial institution that now pivots on green projects, the World Bank has been inexplicably reluctant to support the US$80 billion Inga 3 power project in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has the potential to generate electricity that could supply up to 15 countries in the region.

For perspective, a hydroelectric plant at Inga Falls on the Congo River could generate 40 000MW, almost double the 22 500MW produced by the grand Three Gorges Dam in China — the largest hydroelectric dam in the world.

Although condemned by history, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire managed to complete the first two phases of Inga in 1972 and 1982, which have an installed capacity of a little less than 2 000MW. Our bid to industrialise could remain a pipe dream without sufficient electricity to power it.

So, none but ourselves will save us from the existential crisis we currently face.

We are racing against time.

Bishop out!