Zimbabwe - IOM Zimbabwe last week reported on the achievements of a Swedish-funded project to help vulnerable migrants and mobile communities in Zimbabwe. Thousands of undocumented Zimbabweans and other African migrants migrate from Zimbabwe to South Africa every year in search of work and many are returned. 

The USD 3 million project: Responding to the Immediate and Residual Needs of the Vulnerable Migrants and Mobile Population Groups in Zimbabwe aimed to promote community stabilization and resilience-building in migrant communities. It was implemented between January 2015 and March 2016 and funded by the Swedish International Development and Co-operation Agency (Sida).

Lily Sanya, IOM Zimbabwe Chief of Mission said: “The project changed some people’s lives in a significant way through improved livelihoods, provision of water and sanitation, and improved access to basic social services.”

IOM’s contribution to the project’s implementation included:

• the mechanization of conservation agriculture, which benefited 700 farmers;
• support to communities to establish three climate-smart irrigation schemes, build and rehabilitate five cattle dip tanks and sink 8 community boreholes, which benefited 1,100 people with 4,600 cattle;
• the construction of two health centres, and training of over 200 health staff in health care and management;
• the improvement of school infrastructure through the construction of two classroom blocks, two teachers’ houses, five institutional boreholes and sanitation facilities within seven schools;
• the provision of emergency assistance to 2,454 households through the distribution of 1,500 tarpaulin tents for temporary shelters, 2,000 blankets, 255 non-foot item kits, and emergency cash transfers.

In addition, 35,155 returned migrants and refugees from neighbouring countries were assisted with food, medical treatment and transportation to their homes and to Tongogara Refugee Camp in Chipinge District, Zimbabwe.

“The provision of a borehole in our community has greatly changed the lives of women and children who had to endure travelling over 5km to fetch water for household use, exposing women and girls to risks of sexual abuse,” said Janet Mudzingwa, one of the project’s beneficiaries in Chingwizi Community, Mwenezi District.

Maria Selia, Head of Development Cooperation at the Swedish Embassy noted: “These achievements are still a drop in the ocean compared to the level of current and emerging needs. I would like to encourage IOM and other development partners, working together with the Government to not only ensure these successes are sustained, but to go on and build on them.”

The project contributed to the 2012-2015 Zimbabwe United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) and the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation priority areas of agriculture and livelihoods (through mechanized conservation agriculture micro-irrigation and enterprise  development), population and social services (through education, water, sanitation and hygiene, health projects), and justice and governance (through community-based planning).  

For further information, please contact Ben Mbaura at IOM Zimbabwe, Tel.: +263 4 704284/5; Email: bmbaura@iom.int