The Sunday News
Business Reporter
THE African Development Fund (ADF) on Wednesday approved a $685,000 grant to strengthen Zimbabwe’s capacity to manage disaster risks, including droughts, floods and tropical cyclones, through the Bank’s Africa Disaster Risk Financing (ADRiFi) programme.
In a statement, the bank said the grant will cover training for various national agencies involved in disaster risk management and financing and contingency planning as part of the ADRiFi project, designed to enhance the response of Regional Member Countries to climate disasters and promote innovative disaster risk finance instruments, such as disaster risk insurance.
“It will also benefit populations at risk of exposure to extreme drought events, particularly smallholder farmers and vulnerable rural communities. ADF is the concessionary lending arm of the African Development Bank Group.
In collaboration with the Bank, the African Risk Capacity, a specialized agency of the African Union, will provide in-kind contribution for trainings estimated at around $320,000. The project will run for two years, starting from March 2020,” said the bank.
AfDB Zimbabwe country manager Mr Damoni Kitabire, said extreme weather events such as prolonged dry spells, droughts, floods and tropical cyclones have affected agricultural production and disrupted livelihoods of rural Zimbabwe.
“Coupled with harsh economic challenges, these extreme weather events increase household vulnerability, food insecurity, chronic poverty and malnutrition across the country,” Mr Kitabire.
In March last year, Zimbabwe was hit by Cyclone Idai, which caused damage to infrastructure and livelihoods in several rural communities.
The drought, worsened by the unfavourable economic conditions in the country, is estimated to have exposed 5.5 million people in rural areas and about 3 million urban dwellers to extreme vulnerability and food insecurity in the first half of 2020.
The ADRiFi project complements other initiatives currently being implemented in the agriculture sector and the Bank’s post Idai rehabilitation and reconstruction project in Zimbabwe. The country is also a beneficiary of a Euro 1.2 million grant from the Bank, allocated for training of some eight resource-rich African countries, to improve their mining revenues.
