The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
CLOSE to 90 000 Zimbabweans in the country’s most food insecure urban suburbs have been placed under a food aid programme by a local Non-Governmental Organisation, Danish Church Aid that has seen them receiving food vouchers that are worth US$12 redeemable at local shops.
According to the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZIMVAC), 7.7 million Zimbabweans are on the verge of starvation and 2.2 million of those people are in urban areas where livelihoods were severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
A recent (May 2020) Dan Church Aid (DCA) Zimbabwe baseline study with support from the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO), to inform livelihood support in the identified districts, the survey found that most households in Mzilikazi in Bulawayo, Harare South, Mabvuku and Tafara districts are grappling with acute food insecurity as measured by food consumption scores.
Last week, the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, Professor Paul Mavima, toured various suburbs in Bulawayo where he had an appreciation of how the e-vouchers are redeemable.
The e-vouchers are also redeemable at selected fresh vegetable markets in the cities.
Mr Mads Lindegard the country director for DCA said they allocated US$12 for the households under the ECHO programme.
“The DCA Urban Social Assistance Programme seeks to restore dignity to urban households by enhancing their access to food, providing a short-term cushion to improve food security. This assistance is being rendered through the electronic-voucher cash system.
“The programme was piloted in Epworth, reaching 18 990 individuals, each receiving US$9. In July 2020, the project was expanded to reach an additional 30 000 beneficiaries and the programme has since grown to reach a total of 89 000 individuals in Harare South, Mabvuku and Tafara, and Mzilikazi districts,” he said.
In September, the ECHO funded e-voucher was increased to US$12, based on recommendations of the National Cash Working Group, to factor in the changing macro- economic conditions in the country.
“With the e-voucher, beneficiaries can purchase basic stuffs such as soap, cooking oil, mealie-meal and rice at specific retailers, who accept the DCA e-voucher.
“These include select OK and Spar supermarkets, of which Entumbane and Queensdale OK supermarkets are examples,” said Mr Lindegard.
The DCA said the programme marks a departure from the traditional model where relief efforts are prioritised for people in rural areas – being historical epicentres of poverty- ignoring the urban poor.
Scientifically, the food consumption score which residents of the suburbs were made to take, measures components of dietary diversity, food frequency and the relative nutritional importance of the food consumed by households.
“The general observations are that most households have either borderline or poor food consumption, with only 25 percent having a dietary diversity score rated as good.
People wait for their groceries from South Africa at Malaitsha.com offices in Bulawayo yesterday.—Picture by Dennis Mudzamiri
The gender aggregated data laid bare the disparities in these communities, where females are taking on the traditional male role of household heads with 61.8 percent of households in Mzilikazi being female, 52.0 percent in Harare South and 58.8 percent in Mabvuku and Tafara. The majority are between the ages of 19 and 64, and approximately 10 percent are elderly,” he said.
The study further revealed that on average, 21 percent of the female household heads have health challenges including chronic conditions such as diabetes, which potentially inhibits their participation in different forms of livelihoods.
“This has resulted in households adopting negative coping mechanisms such as sex work, child marriages and fragmentation of the family unit, to provide for their families.
“Most alarmingly, the research highlighted a high number of girls below the age of 18 years that are being married off, as households battle to cope with the different forms of urban socio-economic shocks.
“There are also escalating numbers of school dropouts, and high incidences of sexual and gender-based violence among other social vices,” lamented Mr Lindegard.
Through its flagship urban social protection interventions such as the e-voucher system, DanChurchAid is among other things, restoring dignity to the urban poor, improving household food consumption and nutrition, safeguarding the most vulnerable including the girl child, and preventing sexual and gender-based violence in the community. — @NyembeziMu
