Aid ban triple’s need for food, say NGOs

Six weeks after a directive from Zimbabwe’s government ground aid work in the country to a halt, charities’ efforts to resume their operations have largely been thwarted and more than a million people are still living without food aid and medical care.

A letter from CARE, Plan International, Save the Children UK, and a handful of other groups this week requesting that the government lift its ban on humanitarian work was rebuffed by Zimbabwean officials, who said the informal nonprofit coalition wasn’t registered with the government.

While World Vision plans to partially reopen its office next week and resume a feeding program to schools, most charities are still in limbo.

“Everyone is just waiting and hoping,” said Hearly Mayr, a spokesman with Adventist Development and Relief Agency International.

Somewhat encouraging for aid groups, however, is that the prohibition on humanitarian work has been relaxed somewhat since it was first announced in a letter on June 4th. Government officials have said that aid to chronically ill people and to schoolchildren can continue amidst the ban.

A skeletal staff plans to return to World Vision’s main office in Zimbabwe on Monday to help provide such assistance. Meanwhile, the Consortium of Southern Africa Food Security Emergency, which organizes food aid on behalf of CARE, Catholic Relief Services, and World Vision, expects to resume the delivery of food next week to 400,000 children.

Edward Brown, chief of party for the consortium, said some local government officials had requested that his group resume food aid. But he worried that police officers might still stop aid workers and prevent them from gaining entry to schools.

“It’s a question of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing,” he said. “We’re trying to be as careful as possible because we don’t want to put the people we serve or our staff at risk.”

The ban on aid work was imposed by Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s party in part to quell political opposition ahead of the country’s June 27th presidential election. Some aid workers were hopeful that the suspension would be lifted following the election, but so far, those hopes have fallen flat.

Mr. Brown said that even if the ban is lifted, it will take some time before operations can return to normal.

“It’s like General Motors stopping the production of their cars for over a month,” he said. “It takes a while to get that machine running on all cylinders again.”

Many aid groups say they expect the number of people in Zimbabwe needing food to triple by the end of the year, to more than 3 million.

Source: The Chronicle of Philanthropy