A review of the implementation of the drought relief programme
1993
The purpose of the meeting, was to assess various aspects of the Drought Relief Programme in Zimbabwe and to include how to improve its effectiveness in mitigating the impact of drought in the future. Issues examined ranged from the policy environment of the Programme, to its operations, and extended into assessing how other organizations, especially NGOs, could participate more meaningfully in meeting the goals of the Programme. The meeting examines the structures that were set up by government in response to the devastating drought and the overall objective was that food be delivered to the drought stricken areas to avert an impending disaster. During the relief exercise, only the vulnerable groups such as the aged, chronically sick, and the handicapped received free food handouts whilst all the able bodied worked for the food under the food for work programme. The critical shortage of staff hampered the effecient or smooth running of the programme. Vulnerable groups such as lactating mothers and children were cushioned from the negative effects of the drought. Some of the problems were the lack of technical supervision of the projects, lack of monitoring vehicles, inadequate grain supplies and lack of coordination amongst the NGOs. It was reported that the health sector suffered as more manpower was deployed to the supplimentary feedingat the expense of other vital sectors such as the immunization programme. In order to assist communal farmers the government distributed seed and fertilizer packs. The NGOs also distributed a large amount of agricultural inputs for the communal farmers. Farmers are expected to retain a lot of grain having learnt from the last drought. A lot of cattle were saved by the government managed and farmer managed feeding pens. Finally the paper discusses Zimbabwe rainfall patterns
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