The Sunday News
Vincent Gono, Features Editor
“HEALTH is a must for promoting well-rounded personal development, a prerequisite for social and economic development, a symbol of national prosperity and strength and a common pursuit of the people.
We have to deal with health problems facing both developed and developing countries,” notes President XI Jinping in The Governance of China compendium Volume 2.
It is with that in mind that China and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) have committed so many resources to Zimbabwe as part of humanitarian assistance through bilateral and multilateral channels, and continues to pay close attention to support the health and living conditions of the people especially women and girlchildren amid sanctions imposed on the country by the US and EU.
The continued assistance from China also lessened the Covid-19 burden tremendously with the country among those topping the list in its response and management of Covid-19 in the region. Prior to intervention by China and other friendly countries, sanctions have caused the quick motion deterioration of healthcare in the country. The cost of healthcare has over the years been skyrocketing beyond the reach of many, medical drugs have become scarce, health personnel exodus has continued unabated while countries that used to help Zimbabwe in its quest for better health abruptly ended their dance with the country after the imposition of sanctions.
Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services deputy minister Hon Kindness Paradza said sanctions had caused untold suffering to the people of Zimbabwe especially the poor. He paid tribute to President Mnangagwa for leading the initiative to acquire drugs and vaccines from China, Russia and India.
“Due to sanctions, we have experienced serious drug shortages to an extent that our health sector nearly collapsed.
Our pharmaceutical industry doesn’t have capacity to secure some specialized drugs or raw materials to manufacture the necessary drugs for our hospitals and clinics.
“We are glad to have a visionary leader in His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Dr Emmerson Mnangagwa, who led the initiative of acquiring Covid-19 vaccines from our all-weather friends, the Chinese and Russia including India. We now have enough vaccines to inoculate our people. And very soon we should be able to achieve our herd immunity,” said Hon Paradza.
He urged people not to be complacent saying there was imminent danger of a fourth wave which was said to be more deadly than the previous three attacks. Hon Paradza further extended his gratitude to the Government of China adding that because of sanctions the Swedish Government halted a health initiative founded in 1997 and funded to the tune of 50 million SEK that sought to improve water and sanitation, education and living condition of disabled people in Zimbabwe society.
The initiative also sought to mitigate the spread of HIV and other related diseases. The Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) also suspended its Health Sector Support Programme to Zimbabwe valued at 235 million DKK. The programme was established to support healthcare services in rural areas of Zimbabwe through the Ministry of Health and Child Care.
These programmes were suspended not because the governments of the donor countries (Sweden and Denmark) were no longer interested in funding the projects, but rather because they adhered to the EU sanctions directives, which urged member states to desist from making funds available to the Government of Zimbabwe.
Sanctions denied the population the health benefits they initially enjoyed from healthcare programmes sponsored by donor agencies at a time when the Zimbabwean Government was unable to provide a replacement or alternative.
China has however, stood in the gap. The Asian giant has committed reproductive health medical equipment and medicines as part of the US$1,24 million support to the Government of Zimbabwe’s Health Assistance Project for Women and Girls in Zimbabwe Affected by Tropical Cyclone Idai in Chimanimani and Chipinge districts among other health interventions.
The interventions were lauded by Deputy Minister Paradza.
“We are grateful to the Government of China in that, apart from donating our initial vaccines, they also assisted in resuscitating infrastructure within our health facilities including donating State of the art hospital equipment. So basically, China came to our rescue during the time of our need. We will remain indebted to the Chinese as you know they have been with us since our liberation struggle,” he said.
The health assistance project enabled the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC) to strengthen emergency obstetric and neonatal care in the cyclone affected areas in Zimbabwe. The fund contributed to the reduction of maternal morbidity and mortality by 20% in the Cyclone Idai affected districts in Zimbabwe.
According to the 2019 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, Zimbabwe has a high maternal mortality rate with 462 deaths per 100 000 live births. Expressing China’s commitment to uplifting the health of Zimbabweans under sanctions, the Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe, His Excellency, Guo Shaochun said: “As a responsible member of international society and the all-weather friend of Zimbabwe, China has been doing its best to provide all kinds of assistance to Zimbabwe in human rights, health care and infrastructure construction.”
Through the project which began last year, UNFPA reproductive health medical equipment and medicines were procured and distributed to health facilities in cyclone affected districts of Zimbabwe. The aim is to enhance their capacity to provide emergency care services for pregnant women and new-borns as well as rehabilitate maternity waiting rooms in the affected districts to ensure pregnant women who live far from hospitals or have high risk pregnancies can be accommodated comfortably close to these facilities towards their due date.
In separate support from China, Ansun Angel Health Management Group Ltd of China, also donated sanitary pads to young women and girls in Zimbabwe which were distributed through the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium enterprises Development and various Civil Society Organisations that have a strong community presence around the country.
The donation allowed many girls in Zimbabwe to have their menstrual periods with dignity and signifies strong commitment and solidarity between the people of China and Zimbabwe. Research and advise from various thinktanks however, points to the fact that sanctions are not the smartest way of achieving the targeted objectives whatever they maybe, US has remained deaf to the calls renewing the economic embargo at every turn.
Professor Steve Hanke of Johns Hopkins University submitted that sanctions have a history of failure.
“Sanctions should be dropped immediately. Sanctions don’t work,” argued Hanke, adding that “the history of economic and financial sanctions is one failure after another, the production of all kinds of negative, unintended consequences,” said Hanke.
Hanke advised the U.S. and the international community to adopt a different strategy that excludes sanctions and foreign aid, which he said, also doesn’t help. Hanke’s sentiments were echoed by W. Gyude Moore of the Center for Global Development, who reinforced the point that sanctions don’t work.
“Sanctions that target the people of Zimbabwe ordinarily are not going to work and in the long term are not going to help resolve the issues in Zimbabwe,” Moore said.
There is consensus from the researchers and economists that the sanctions have proved more hurtful to the ordinary people of Zimbabwe. Through the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZIDERA) of 2001 Zimbabwe is prevented from accessing lines of credit from the IMF and the International Development Association among other International Financial Institutions.
Both Sadc and AU have loudly been denouncing sanctions which they say serve no-one than to impoverish the masses of Zimbabwe by bringing the country’s economy to its knees in what has become a political chess game where the ordinary people are being used as pawns.
China and Russia have been among the global powerhouses to openly call for the lifting of sanctions against Zimbabwe.
