The Sunday Mail
Hon Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri
We have been advising Government on the weather outlook to ensure mitigation strategies are instituted to ameliorate problems surrounding climate change.
These interventions must be short, medium and long-term.
Roughly 95 percent of Zimbabwe has received low rainfall, insufficient to sustain crops. Some will survive up to some point, while others will require irrigation.
Government has been looking at water resources within its confinement, and planning has been futuristic, with 6 000-plus dams of various sizes in situ.
Some dams were built by farmers individually, with the Zimbabwe National Water Authority also doing a marvellous job.
In fact, continentally, we are only second to South Africa when it comes to water infrastructure. The available water can cushion farmers against drought.
What remains is how we organise ourselves.
A Cabinet Committee chaired by Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Dr Joseph Made has been constituted to superintend water usage in agriculture.
The idea is to ensure farmers use irrigation water methodically, efficiently.
Our ministry is on that committee to regularly advise on the amount of water available for irrigation, at the same time managing it for future use.
Some towns have water that can last two years, but that resource can be depleted if used unwisely.
All that’s required is to be very careful in our business.
Water harvesting is one of our strategies. This involves storing rain water in dams and controlling underground water usage.
Though we have done remarkably well in sinking boreholes, some of them are running dry as water levels are receding, meaning we have to dig deeper.
Nevertheless, we have to control such digging.
Gray water – the water that we recycle in towns – must not be wasted either as it can be used for our gardens. Rain water can also be collected from the gutters on our roofs.
In a nutshell, we are implementing various strategies stemming from COP21.
The conference took far-reaching decisions, reached a financing agreement and emphasised adaptation and resilience building.
Development partners have already approached us to assist in building the capacity of our institutions in dealing with climate change.
This could not have come at a better time as we are working with several stakeholders, and finalising Zimbabwe’s National Climate Change Policy.
Our strategy’s main thrust is ensuring everyone adapts to climate change via food security enhancement and improved livelihoods – both of which are linked to incomes of vulnerable people.
There is, therefore, need to help communities with financial and human capacity in provision of basic resources.
The strategy looks at indigenous knowledge and increasing food production through intensive irrigation and water harvesting.
The World Bank is helping Zimbabwe develop an irrigation master plan to harness water for increased food production.
Another key element of the strategy is an early warning system to make us more prepared and adapt better.
We want to empower communities by guaranteeing a smooth flow of information from our ministry, the Meteorological Services Department and agriculture and water resources sectors.
Often, we are found wanting when it comes to institutional capacity on climate governance and co-ordination as well as global climate change relations.
As such, all our plans now factor in climate change.
Zinwa, for instance, has already incorporated this in its 2016 plan of action.
Further, on February 3, 2016, the WB gave us US$10 million to improve access to and efficiency in water provision. This project will rehabilitate water systems in Lupane, Madziwa, Zimunya, Gutu, Nembudziya, Guruve and Mataga.
It will also support Zimbabwe’s National Water Resources Master Plan, Zinwa’s commercialisation and establishment of a water supply and sanitation regulator.
We are also building Zinwa’s capacity to collect levies as consumers owe the Authority US$120 million.
We know some people continually fell trees for firewood, thereby depleting our forests.
Forests are important to carbon energy. So, as a strategy, we are saving our forests by planting more trees, taking advantage of the little rainfall.
We are also advocating renewable energy like solar.
I’m glad the Energy and Power Development Ministry is pushing that agenda as this ties in with our environmental protection mandate.
Illegal tree-cutting must stop; we are working closely with police on that.
A good number of farmers grow tobacco, and Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa collects levies from them that go towards growing trees.
Minister Chinamasa and I are discussing growing as many trees as possible and putting up wood-lots, especially on tobacco farms. We are also promoting biogas use in tobacco farming .
Whenever there is drought, the possibility of animals dying is high.
Now is the time for Zinwa and other players to invest in borehole sinking and fitting solar pumps to save these animals.
Honourable Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri is Environment, Water and Climate Minister. She was speaking to The Sunday Mail Reporter Livingstone Marufu in Harare on February 4, 2016
