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Zimbabwe

This is the central tragedy: a country that used not only to be self-sufficient, but to export food to Zambia, Malawi and other countries in the region now has a food deficit that cannot be made good through commercial trade. In years past, Zimbabwe had a larger commercial sector in its economy than most countries in central and southern Africa. The gap has to be filled by donors from abroad through food aid. It is to the credit of the UK that we have never flinched from that task, despite our very strong differences with the Government of Zimbabwe. If it is a question of whether people live or starve, the only thing a rich country such as ours can do is provide the food. If we are not welcome in person in the country, we need to find an agency such as the World Food Programme to deliver the aid on our behalf. We have done that, and it is the right thing to do. When the Committee was in Zimbabwe a couple of weeks ago, we met the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai. He urged the UK to think about what he called humanitarian aid-plus. He did not suggest that circumstances are yet appropriate for large-scale aid to be channelled through the Government, but he did say that we ought to be looking at longer-term development, not just immediate humanitarian relief. To a considerable extent, that is what DFID is doing. It is looking at the issues of sewerage and water supplies and the provision of a basic formulary of drugs, rather than just responding to the health problems caused by food shortages. I would like us to do everything we can to move the aid relationship between this country and Zimbabwe on from one of humanitarian relief to one that builds economic and political capacity within the country. The inclusive Government who grew out of the global political agreement incorporate members of the Movement for Democratic Change as well as of ZANU-PF, the long-term ruling party, but that Government are clearly fragile and under pressure. There have been some real achievements—most notably, of course, the stabilisation of the economy and the Finance Minister's decision to dollarise the economy. That led to two immediate advantages: first, it stopped inflation in its tracks, and secondly it stopped the Zimbabwean central bank from printing money to give to the party in power or senior people in the ruling regime; that was what had destroyed the value of the Zimbabwean dollar. The inclusive Government are rebuilding the capacity of the civil service to deliver basic services to the people, but they have a long way to go.