The Zimbabwean opposition, that tired bunch, would first need to reinvent itself before it could lead an uprising.
And then there is Zimbabweans’ complicated relationship with Mugabe and Zanu-PF. Many suffer from a political version of Stockholm syndrome. Zanu-PF not only liberated Zimbabwe from colonial rule, before everything started unraveling, it also delivered some measure of prosperity. The Mugabe brand is a mix of irreparably damaged and historically glorious, and that confusing combination serves as a psychological block against revolt.

Read more from the New York Times blog

Harare to ration water in wealthy suburbs as typhoid cases rise

Maybe they’ll start with the homes of government ministers, and Mugabe’s Mansion.

Yeah right.

Taking action against a Typhoid outbreak, which to date has had 900 reported cases, the City of Harare hastily dispatched Municipal Police to contain the spread of the disease by closing down Mereki, a popular braai spot in Warren Park. So far city and government health officials have named fish, raw meat sold in butcheries and fruits and vegetables for sale from open air vendors and people’s markets as vectors of the Salmonella Typhi bacterium. Authorities even went so far as to issue a statement saying that water was not the problem in this outbreak. According to the World Health Organisation, water, or in this case the lack of it, is the cause of a typhoid outbreak.

Water and sanitation delivery services have been poor at best and nonexistent at worst in all of the areas affected by Typhoid. Health officials report that cases have been found in Chitungwiza, Epworth, Dzivarasekwa, Budiriro and Warren Park. The epicentre of the outbreak is said to be in Kuwadzana. Residents of all these areas have complained vociferously to anyone who would listen about erratic water delivery, sewerage flowing unabated in the streets, zero refuse collection by the city and the decrepit state of their public ablution facilities. Given this set of circumstances it is surprising that outbreak is not more severe.

Addressing members of the police force undertaking diploma studies Police Deputy-Commissioner General Levie Sibanda, said:

“The organisation does not take lightly acts of misdemeanour and those found wanting should be dealt with accordingly.”

For once the Herald does not exaggerate when it states the ZRP is merely ‘concerned’. It’s all very well to say this at a ceremony, but what action is being taken? Which officers are under investigation for soliciting bribes, excessive use of force and dereliction of duty?

Read the full article here

The Global Journal has released the top one hundred best Non Governmental Organizations in the world with Wikimedia Foundation topping the list for its efforts of coming up with the famous Wikipedia. According to Global Journal the criteria which was used to come up with the top hundred covered areas like:

Innovation
Effectiveness
Impact
Efficiency and value for money
Transparency and Accountability
Sustainability
Strategic and Financial Management
Peer Review

Some of the big organisations ranked in the top ten and operating in Zimbabwe include Oxfam, Care International, International Rescue Committee and Medicine Sans Frontiers. The only African based organisation in the top ten list is a Kenyan organiation called Ushahidi. The organisation specialises in developing free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping. Ushahidi developed a software package, to map incidents of violence and peace efforts from reports submitted via the web and mobile phones during the Kenyan elections in 2007.

Source

Here’s an excerpt from an interview I’ve just done with the Executive Director of the Southern African Parliamentary Support Trust, John Makamure:

You work with both Civil Society and Parliament. For a very long time Civil Society has been advocating for media freedom, but obviously the legislative environment does not allow for this. Why do you think civil society is not lobbying parliamentarians directly to introduce the Private Member Bills that would change this?

I am also very concerned that our civil society friends are not taking advantage of the democratic space available in Parliament. Advocacy requires that you exploit any opportunities that are available. We have supported quite a number of public hearings that are conducted by committees in Parliament. We fund those. And we try to send out information to members of civic society. But the response has been very poor on some public policy matters, which we believe would be relevant to those organisations. We don’t understand the apathy. We need civic society to engage Parliament more and work with the committees and individual members to improve the public policy environment.