Govt pursues rural industrialisation

03 Apr, 2022 - 00:04 0 Views
Govt pursues rural industrialisation President Emmerson Mnangagwa

The Sunday Mail

Sunday Mail Reporter

THE Government has adopted strategies to promote rural industrialisation through the streamlining of value chains in all economic sectors to growth points, President Mnangagwa has said.

This comes as the President said the decision to have all provinces taking turns to host the country’s Independence Day celebrations is a strategy to spotlight the provinces and ensure they get due attention while also showcasing their endowments. This year the celebrations are scheduled for Bulawayo.

In an article penned for this publication, President Mnangagwa said the strategies to promote rural industrialisation are also meant to curb rural pauperisatis0on through “thoughtless” densification of settlements.

“We must create and attract industries to rural areas to underpin the current countrywide drift towards greater urbanisation,” he said.

“To that end, factor endowments and gainful economic activity in given regions and areas should become the nucleus of rural industrialisation.

“We have adopted clear value chains across all sectors. These must now be interrogated and adapted for each region, so rural industries are built to beneficiate and create employment at growth points. Growth points are exactly that: nodes of rural economic growth through industrialisation.”

President Mnangagwa said the decision to hold the country’s 42nd Independence celebrations in Bulawayo is much more than a mere change of venue and geography but a profound statement on collective ownership of the day.

He said Independence Day celebrations will be rotated annually in all provinces in line with the devolution programme that engenders development across all the country’s provinces.

This year’s national Independence celebrations are much more special given the fact that for two consecutive years, the country could not mark the hallowed day due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Our 42nd year of Independence is set to be marked with a difference. Today we can, and thus should compensate for the years we lost by doubling its importance and significance.”

“For the first time in the history of our 42 years of Independence, we mark this sacred day away from Harare, our capital city,”  he said.

“We all share it as Zimbabweans, regardless of village, town, city, district or province. Indeed, that day unites us all as one people, whatever our colour, creed, tribe, sub-culture, language, age or gender. For that reason, no one place or city monopolises its commemoration.”

Going forward, the President said, Independence celebrations will be rotated among the country’s ten provinces.

“From this year going into the future, all our regions will take turns to host this very important day so our whole nation identifies with it in equal measure,” he said.

“Again, this is more than a mere hosting responsibility, it is an opportunity for the national leadership to concentrate its focus on the specific and peculiar needs of each region when it hosts this national event.

“In future, the host region must arrange for a week-long conference preceding the anniversary, during which the focus will be on it exclusively.”

This dovetails with the country’s constitutionally mandated policy of devolution by which powers and decisions on governance and development cascade down to regions.

It is also an opportunity for respective hosts to show and exhibit their subcultures which in harmonious combination and sum, create our national Zimbabwean culture, he said.

“This is as it should be in a free Zimbabwe where national commemorative platforms must display our whole identity as a people, in its mosaic richness.”

President Mnangagwa said the decentralised independence celebrations afford the Government an opportunity to monitor progress made on devolution.

“Yes, an opportunity for us to take stock of how each of our ten regions has fared or is faring, in carving a distinct economy based on its unique factor endowments,” he said.

“Any one region hosting our nation for this happy commemoration must give us a picture of its total situation warts and all.

“We want to know about the state of infrastructure, the basic social amenities, the state of education, contribution to our national agriculture, the natural resources available to it, and how, in meticulous combination, all these are interacting to yield provincial GDPs and rural industrialisation, which contribute to the overall national GDP.”

President Mnangagwa expressed satisfaction with the steady growth being experienced at Growth Points as a result of the devolution policy.

“I wish to make two observations in respect of our national devolution policy and the way it is panning out,” he said.

“Across regions, I see lots of growth points which, before long, will burgeon into towns and even cities.

“This is very good and points to the future. What, however, would make this transformation to urbanity better, is when we ensure it is underpinned and driven by gainful economic activity, as opposed to just concentrated human settlements.”

 

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