Donors wary of funding housing programme

The Zimbabwean government says it is willing to accept UN assistance to house people affected by its urban clean-up campaign, but donors are not clamouring to fund the programme. "The government wants us to build shelters for its own list of beneficiaries, while we would like to help all those in need and left homeless," said a western diplomat. A UN report estimated that Operation Murambatsvina - which the government said was aimed at clearing slums and flushing out criminals - had left more than 700,000 people homeless or without a livelihood after kicking off in mid-May. The Zimbabwean government had initially rejected the UN offer to build temporary shelters as there was "no humanitarian crisis", only to make an about-turn this week. In its acceptance letter the government laid down specifications for the construction of permanent brick and concrete one-room shelters. The construction of 10 pilot houses for government approval was likely to begin next week, said UN spokesman Hiro Ueki in the capital, Harare. Subject to funding, the UN is to construct 2,500 housing units during the first phase of the programme, which intends to build 20,000 units at a total cost of US $18 million, he added. "Imagine the precedent we will be setting - any country can go ahead, demolish informal settlements and ask the international community to rehabilitate them," the diplomat commented. "Each unit is now going to cost between US $500 and $1,000, and the total cost is going to climb beyond the $18 million figure earmarked for the initial proposal, which involved the construction of wooden shelters - for that amount of money we could have helped everyone affected by the clean-up operation," another envoy remarked. On Wednesday, human rights and civic organisations appealed to African leaders to address the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe. The joint appeal, led by Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), was supported by international organisations that included the Housing and Land Rights Network, the Habitat International Coalition, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions. "We want to highlight the failure of African leaders to condemn the clean-up campaign and their non-compliance with the UN report's recommendations to provide humanitarian assistance to those affected," said ZLHR's Otto Saki.