Aid work suffers as donors withdraw

As UNDP head Mark Malloch-Brown prepared to meet Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe in Harare in order to broker new talks between the government and international funders, UNICEF said on Thursday that donor withdrawal was already having an impact on humanitarian work in the country. UNICEF Country Representative Justin Maeda told IRIN that there would be a shortfall of about US $7 million in 2001 and that would result in the agency only being able to complete about 35 percent of its work next year. “Some donors are telling us that until there is clarity between themselves and the Zimbabwe government they cannot fund us,” Maeda said. He added that certain donors were not drawing a distinction between funding for government projects and funding for development work. “Very important work with children and young people is being affected, particularly around HIV/AIDS and orphans,” Maeda said. He told IRIN that five highly-experienced staff would have to be laid off at the end of the year because of the funding problem. “Maybe another ten will be laid off later in the year if this continues,” he said. Maeda expressed concern that donor countries were withdrawing support from the country wholesale because of the political situation, despite an understanding that development work would retain international support. Donors have been steadily withdrawing from Zimbabwe since Mugabe launched his controversial and often violent land redistribution programme earlier this year. The scheme has seen hundreds of white-owned commercial farms occupied illegally by war veterans, ZANU-PF party supporters and landless peasants. Donors have also been unhappy about Zimbabwe’s continued presence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where Mugabe’s troops have been helping prop-up President Laurent-Desire Kabila against Rwandan and Ugandan-backed rebel groups. The government has acknowledged spending US $200 million in the DRC over two years, but analysts suggest the figure is far higher. Earlier this month Denmark became the latest country to reduce its aid to Zimbabwe. “We are very disappointed that the government of Harare has not followed the decision of Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court to end the illegal occupation of farms and land,” Cooperation Minister Jan Troejborg said in the Danish capital Copenhagen. But Ole Moesby, head of the Southern Africa department of the Danish Development Ministry, told IRIN that Denmark was only ending cooperation with the agricultural ministry and that work with NGOs, UN agencies and charities would not be affected. UNDP’s Mark Malloch Brown said earlier this month that he would be taking a message to Mugabe from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. “Our number one priority in Zimbabwe is the people, no donor wants to see this country, which was once stable and had relative freedom, degenerate in this manner. It is terrible, both for Zimbabwe and the region,” he added. South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki and his Nigerian counterpart, Olusegun Obasanjo, were due to fly to Zimbabwe on Thursday for talks with Mugabe ahead of his meeting with Malloch Brown.