Zimbabwe – Promoting Recovery in Zimbabwe (PRIZE)
ACDI/VOCA tackles food insecurity in Mudzi and Rushinga districts
Zimbabwe recently has experienced several promising economic and political developments, including a relatively successful harvest in 2010 and the formation of the Government of National Unity. Food insecurity, however, remains a critical issue.
Years of deteriorating infrastructure and fading government services have contributed to diminished domestic food production, which currently is insufficient to meet Zimbabwe’s needs. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) estimates that 18 percent of the population—2.2 million people—is food insecure.
Promoting Recovery in Zimbabwe (PRIZE)—a two-year, $7.8 million USAID P.L. 480 Title II program—aims to reduce chronic hunger and food insecurity in the rural districts of Mudzi and Rushinga by (1) addressing immediate emergency food needs and (2) investing in longer-term agricultural development.
Part of a consortium with Catholic Relief Services and CARE, ACDI/VOCA collaborates with its local partner, Community Technology Development Trust (CTDT), to implement an integrated program that improves the availability of, and access to, food through a number of activities, including
vulnerable group feeding (VGF)
food for asset creation, improved agricultural productivity and conservation farming
improved access to markets using the value chain approach
capacity building in livestock management
improved access to financial services through village savings and loans
Emergency Food Delivery
ACDI/VOCA will provide emergency food aid to 49,400 beneficiaries in Mudzi and Rushinga, focusing on the most food-insecure populations, including orphans and vulnerable children and people living with HIV or AIDS.
PRIZE staff are distributing food rations through VGF during Zimbabwe’s current peak hungry season, November 2010 to March 2011, when locally produced food from the previous harvest no longer is available. Staff collaborate with local stakeholders to conduct ward-ranking analyses to determine the most food-insecure wards in each district. Beneficiaries are registered to receive the monthly food rations based on these ward rankings.
The aim of the emergency food delivery is to bolster vulnerable households so members can carry on productive economic activities and conserve assets like seeds and livestock for the following planting season instead of consuming or selling them.
During the food distribution, PRIZE staff provide community members with guidance on nutrition and the nutritional needs of different family members, including pregnant and nursing women and young children, to better ensure that all household members benefit from the program.
Emergency food aid can obviate the need for families to engage in high-risk coping strategies or illegal activities and can help keep families together. The assistance also allows households to spend their scarce cash resources on other essentials like medical care, further reducing household vulnerability.
Agricultural Development
Zimbabwe also faces significant economic and agricultural development challenges. The country has a 95 percent unemployment rate, and 68 percent of its population lives below the poverty line, according to the CIA World Factbook.
Under PRIZE, ACDI/VOCA and its program partners also will implement several longer-term agricultural development initiatives to boost local food supplies, strengthen local markets and increase farmers’ incomes.
Between 2010 and 2012, PRIZE agricultural activities will help more than 19,000 food-aid recipients to create or improve household and community productive assets as well as reduce their reliance on rain-fed agriculture and increase crop and livestock production. Activities range from developing small and large irrigation schemes to homestead garden clusters and livestock dip tanks.
In addition, PRIZE staff will
Train area farmers in conservation agriculture techniques, farming as a business strategies and how to improve livestock production
Employ a market-based approach to analyze value chains and engage the private sector to develop income-generation strategies
Facilitate access to agriculture price information and connect farmers to markets by creating linkages between farmer groups and the private sector
Work with farmer groups to form village savings and loan groups to encourage people, mostly women farmers, to accumulate savings and borrow money for income-generating activities.
Finally, PRIZE staff will work with communities to employ disaster risk-reduction strategies to reduce communities’ vulnerability to future shocks.
The PRIZE consortium, led by Catholic Relief Services, works in eight districts of Zimbabwe: Beitbridge, Bulilima, Gwanda, Mangwe, Matobo, Mberengwa, Mudzi and Rushinga. ACDI/VOCA is responsible for activities in Mudzi and Rushinga. Click here to read more about our programs in Zimbabwe.
For more information, contact Alexandra Gillespie at agillespie@acdivoca.org.
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