Challenges Facing Aid Agencies in Zimbabwe

by Michael Bear

category: Humanitarian Relief

Published December 30, 2008 @ 11:22PM PT

Just a quick one, to highlight a fascinating IRIN article - Zimbabwe: Tough challenges for an aid agency - that came out Tuesday.  As the situation in Zimbabwe begins to look like ever more Bosch's vision of hell, complete with hunger and disease, aid agencies are struggling to reach those most in need.

The article features an interview with Amanda Weisbaum, the Emergency Manager for Save the Children UK in Zimbabwe.  As Weisbaum describes the situation:

"There is no food, we have malnutrition, there is cholera, now we are expecting a malaria outbreak...In terms of access, Zimbabwe, comparatively, is one of the worst areas I have worked in. At least in Darfur, when we ran out of stock we could fly in supplies to the areas we worked in - here we cannot."

The article then lists some the main challenges facing aid agencies in the country:

"1. Communications: 'Our day begins with us [the head office in the capital, Harare] trying to get in touch with our offices in the two districts Binga and Nyaminyami. It can at times take us an entire day - the phone lines don’t work. Radio communication is also relatively poor,' said Weisbaum.

2. Foreign exchange: When the office in Harare does get through to district offices, raising foreign exchange to buy and deliver the supplies is a 'huge' problem.

Since last month, aid agencies have been allowed to pay their national staff in foreign exchange. The economy unofficially runs on the US dollar. 'But we don’t know who decides the exchange rate - the banks don’t function very well and accessing US dollars can be quite problematic,' explained Weisbaum...The aid agency can also spend an entire day trying to find foreign exchange to buy fuel and pay the driver.

3. Food shortages: Feeding staff and beneficiaries in the Cholera Treatment Centres (CTC) set up across the country in response to the cholera outbreak remains a huge challenge. 'We provide food packs to our staff going to the field because often they cannot access food.'

The charity even had to raid its own stocks to send food for 22 new cholera admissions and care givers in a CTC over the past few days in Nyaminyami District. 'It is the World Food Programme’s job to provide food for those admitted in the centre, but they don’t have food either,' explained Weisbaum. WFP is already rationing food aid in Zimbabwe.

4. Writing reports to raise money, which might not come: 'And I think we seem to spend many days just writing reports, attending meetings, trying to compile data to raise money from donors, when we should actually be out there trying to help beneficiaries,' said a frustrated Weisbaum."

[Photo of child in Zimbabwe from AP]