Hello again. Here is a small update: Kubatana has moved its blog style posts (citizen voice, feedback, and yes the JOBS) to our main website: www.kubatana.net

This website will now be hosting news, updates, citizen feedback, our newsletter and job offerings, the NGO directory, and more. So if you want the latest from Kubatana, make sure to visit our main website: www.kubatana.net

Meanwhile, this blog will still be here “for posterity,” but we won’t be adding to it here – Look for our regularly updated content on www.kubatana.net instead.

And if you’re a researcher looking for our archive of Zimbabwean civil society reports and human rights documents from 2001 – 2013 it’s still there! Just visit archive.kubatana.net and you’ll find all 25,000 documents for your research pleasure.

Thanks!

A new report from the Centre for Research and Development, “Challenges and future prospects of the mining sector in Zimbabwe,” raises some important points on Zimbabwe’s mining sector and the challenges a lack of accountability in that sector create for Zimbabwe’s economy.

The report begins:

The later part of the year 2013 saw the government of Zimbabwe making lukewarm efforts to address challenges bedeviling the mining sector that civil society groups working in this sector have been highlighting relentlessly for years with very limited response from government. Despite the mining sector failing to achieve the projected growth of 17% in 2013 statistics from the ministry of mines indicate that mining has significantly contributed to Zimbabwe’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from an average of 10.2 percent in the 1990s to 19.9 percent in 2009 and 2013 surpassing agriculture. Similarly, figures from the Zimbabwe Investment Authority for 2013 also reveal an upward trend of the mining sector attracting 207 million out of the 660 million worth of investment with the remainder 460.30 million falling into other 5 sectors of the economy. Between 2009 and 2013 the mining industry became the leading export sector accounting for over 60% of Zimbabwe’s total export earnings. In spite of this growth, the mining sector’s contribution to fiscus has largely remained insignificant due to lack of transparency and accountability prevalent in the governance of the sector.

Download the full report here

US Embassy Public Affairs hosts a Food For Thought discussion on Community Arts, Advocacy and Empowerment: Tuesday 7 Jan at 3pm – 7^th Floor, Gold Bridge, Eastgate.

Get to the 2013 Zimbabwe Social Forum!

When: Saturday 14 December 2013, 8:30am – 7:30pm
Where: Raylton Sports Club, Harare (Behind Road Port – 5th Street / George Silundika)
Theme: Our Resources, Our Future

Programme includes theatre performances, plenary discussions, and autonomous sessions on themes like health, debt and trade, youth and students, democracy and rights, social service delivery, arts and culture, labour, gender, and natural resource management.

Find out more and download the full programme

Is that a wardrobe outside the Marondera Municipal office? It would appear so.

We received this community news and photograph from one of our subscribers based in Marondera:

“Municipality of Marondera failed to pay workers and they are now chased by landlords, forced to pile property at head office, see photo.”

We’ve got 8 great books* from Weaver Press that we would like to donate to a community library, an orphanage, an old age home, a hospital or a reading group . . . so if you’d like a shot at scoring the set of books (all Zimbabwean titles) please answer a few questions:

1. Who are you?

2. Tell us about the initiative you want the books donated to.

3. Where is it?

4. If you were going to write a novel, short story or memoir, tell us what your first sentence would be

Please email: info [at] kubatana [dot] net

* An Elegy for Easterly, Petina Gappah; Running with Mother, Christopher Mlalazi; Not another day, Julius Chingono; The Stone Virgins, Yvonne Vera; Stained Earth, Derek Huggins; We Need New Names, NoViolet Bulawayo; Laughing Now, New Stories from Zimbabwe; Writing Lives edited by Irene Staunton