Most countries reserve a date on their calendars to celebrate Mother’s Day and it occurs on various dates and goes with distinctive names. In Zimbabwe, as with some other countries like the USA, the celebration is on Sunday 13th of May. This year marks my first celebration as a mother, and of course, I will continue to observe it as a daughter. Being a mom is very difficult especially in developing countries where the availability of resources is limited for mothers to provide for their children. Some mothers actually do not get the right nutrition they require during pregnancy and as such the child will fail to get good nutrition too when they are born.

In a report on world rankings released recently by Save the Children, on the Status of the World’s Mothers, Norway tops the list and Niger is the last on the list. Norway is therefore ranked as the best place to be a mom in the world. It is important to note too that in 2010 Norway was ranked the best place to live in the world. According to the Status of the World’s Mothers Report, Norway ranks among the very best on contraceptive use, female education, political representation and has one of the most generous maternity leave policies. Niger is last on the index and is regarded as the worst place to be a mom in the world. Niger, a country in West Africa is faced with hunger thus a posing major threat to children’s lives.  In comparison of the two countries, the child mortality rate in Niger is one in six, versus one in 333 in Norway.

Save the Children is an international organisation dedicated to creating lasting change in the lives of children in need around the world. The report, which reveals the Best and Worst Places to Be Mom examines165 countries, with 122 being developing countries. Factors used to determine the rankings were examination of maternal care, education of mothers, economic status of the country, health and nutrition of children, lifetime risk of dying from childbirth, mortality rate of children and maternity leave policies among others. According to Save the Children concentration was turned to mothers because, “the quality of children’s lives depends on the health, security and well-being of their mothers”.

In the 2011 report, Zimbabwe in Tier II of less developed countries was ranked 70 out of 79 countries. Other African countries in Tier II of the 2011 report include Nigeria, Namibia, and Botswana. According to the Status of World’s Mothers Report 2011, the lifetime risk of maternal death is one in forty-two. The percentage of births attended by skilled health professionals was 60%.

The 2012 report did not only focus on rankings but it went further to offer solutions and recommendations. Where hunger is rife in developing countries, Save the Children recommended the solution of breastfeeding. Regularly breastfeeding newborns helps to combat malnutrition in children and lives can be saved, said the report. Other recommendations in the report included investing in frontline health workers, investing in girls’ education, maintaining better hygiene and supplementing meals with iron foliate, zinc and vitamin A.

In my own personal experience in Zimbabwe, I have met mothers who give birth without having seen a doctor or a nurse and the worst scenarios being that of mothers who give birth outside the health system. This is largely due to a lack of money to pay for maternity services rendered at health care institutions. However, with the launch of UNICEF’s Health Transition Fund for Zimbabwe which will see pregnant women and children under five years receive free medical health care at government hospital and clinics there is much anticipation for an improvement in the maternal health care of the country. With this initiative and others taking place in the country we should see Zimbabwe climb a step or two up the rankings.

First it was the cars, followed by salary increments, then sitting allowances, now its demands for residential stands in leafy suburbs. What is most fascinating about these latest demands is the choice of area. Meaning MPs want residential stands in the areas like Borrowdale Brooke, Grey Stone Park but not Budiriro or Mufakose. Most of these legislators never owned a residential stand even in the high-density suburbs where the Povo live and where the bulk of the greedy lawmakers came from. Hiding under the disguise of the fact that the government owes them money in sitting allowances so they should be given the stands at a subsidized rate leaves one wondering if the law makers are holding the country hostage. Since they are the lawmakers they are just going to pass the resolutions and get the stands just like their previous demands at the expense of the taxpayer.

Such a clever and calculating move comes at a time when the nation is still gripped with fear of early elections meaning some of these MPs are now preparing for the future in the event that they lose the elections and get booted out of office.  Off the record some of these MPs have failed to attend Parliament sessions. Use your vote wisely in the next elections and don’t let your X cost you in the next five years.

I wrote to the Mayor of Harare last year about my concerns regarding the flagrant abuse of zoning regulations for businesses in suburban areas in Harare. No response. No big surprise. Everywhere you look there’s a creche, or a cafe, or a restaurant, or a clinic, or a security firm … it’s just not acceptable. I can only think that the authorities in the City of Harare are just plain incompetent, powerless or corrupt. Years ago people operating businesses from residential properties used to duck and dive to avoid The Law. But these days in Zimbabwe, the rule of law, along with any kind of rules and regulations, are flouted with impunity. Do the authorities in the City of Harare honestly think that it is fair and just for home owners to have the value of their property plummet, along with their quality of living, on the back of second hand car dealers et al getting to operate businesses illegally?

Here’s Mr Dube from Eastlea who shares similar concerns. In the meantime, Mr Mayor, please Wake Up, or get the hell out ….

Open Letter to the Mayor of Harare

We, the residents of Wheeler Avenue, Eastlea, Harare, wish to register our strong objection to the granting of consent for the setting up of car sales or any other type of business along this road.

Previous experience has shown that areas zoned for car sales businesses along Robert Mugabe Road/Glenara Avenue are de-greened in order to create parking space. We do not want this environmental damage to happen again in our area. Trees are central to our existence and we know why they are important. We value most of the great natural beauty and the charm of the treed area than the current piece-meal planning. Let us build the environment, instead of destroying it.

Whatever the merits of that decision may have been at the time, conditions have since changed so much since then that is no longer relevant. Already, there are a lot of car sales in the area; we do not see the need for more! The hard practical truth, in our opinion (although we are not experts in traffic engineering or town planning), is that the zoning for car sales ignores the absolute necessity of widening this access road to the city centre. To serve the material increase in population in Harare, Goromonzi and Ruwa as well as traffic from the entire route (Mutare-Harare), Robert Mugabe Road now requires extra road space equivalent to a six-way freeway with separate levels of crossing traffic to remove congestion. The current developments will cause Robert Mugabe Road to remain at its present abnormally low width. The blossoming car sales in our area engender traffic problems. Public and private vehicles are now using the roads on both sides of Robert Mugabe Road which is supposed to be an arterial transportation route, to avoid congestion at the Chiremba road traffic lights.

At least your good offices should have had the courtesy of asking residents if they had any objections to the zoning of our neighbourhood for car sales or any other business. This raises questions about the professional conduct of business and accountability at the Harare City Council offices. We call upon those with the requisite expertise on environmental governance to cause the city fathers to reverse irrational decisions that have a negative impact on the environment, let alone a residential area.

We hope this matter merits serious consideration.

Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Yours Sincerely

G. Dube
CHRA Member (Eastlea)

Inter office communications …  an answer in regard to a query on our browsing speed:

Let me investigate, but it seems to be ok on my side, not too fast, not
too slow.

From a Kubatana member:

On my way to the Tuku concert on Sunday 6th of May, I passed by the entrance to Monomatapa. I got closer to Tuku’s car than I did to the star himself. The concert was packed. After the fireworks my friend and I were pushed up against some metal barriers as a gang of youths swept through the crowd, with either the hot intention to swipe a few cellphones or the euphoria of Ishmael and Tuku’s jamming swelling their hearts.

We can no longer deny that the hopes and aspirations of the Zimbabwean people have been usurped by politicians. Neither ZANU PF nor MDC may claim innocence in illegally seizing what was supposed to be a ‘people driven’ constitution making process and manipulating it for their own political ends.  In truth neither party has the people’s wishes at heart.

In  Pambazuka, Maxwell V Madzikanga writes that the process has become a ‘tokenistic exercise for the rich corrupt and powerful’:

A national constitution is not a political and partisan document and thus all political and non-political actors in Zimbabwe were expected to unite around this very noble cause. This did not happen as politicians from the major political parties selfishly and parochially promoted their partisan position at the expense of national virtues, ethos, rationality and reason.

The constitution is not about regime change. The constitution-making phase was not supposed to be a stone-throwing, political space expansion exercise, sovereignty-induced visitations to the rural areas. The forums were supposed to be focus group reflections, listening tours and detailed discussions of fundamental, all and cross-generational ethos, virtues, values and thinking. The consultations were supposed to dialogical, discursive, give and take clinics and memorable encounters in the life and history of a republic in general and all stakeholders in particular. Sadly, this was not the case. A process that could have been harnessed to promote national unity and reconciliation ended up being hijacked by political heavy weights that stubbornly postured and arrogantly promoted their partisan agendas.

Read the full article here