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V. UNEQUAL ACCESS TO FOOD

In 1991, Zimbabwe acceded to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), which contains specific and detailed provisions about the right to food. Zimbabwe thus recognizes the human right to adequate food, and as a State Party to the Covenant, agrees to “take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right …”²³ The CESCR further binds Zimbabwe to work cooperatively with the international community to alleviate hunger within its borders. When the government of Zimbabwe does not fully disclose information vital to ensuring Zimbabweans’ access to food or consistently tolerates opportunistic abuse by local authorities or members of the ZANU PF, Zimbabwe abrogates its international legal and treaty obligations. (For further information please refer to the Appendix, The Right to Food: Obligations under International Law.)

The government’s food program

Much speculation exists about the GMB’s operations and the size of Zimbabwe’s strategic grain reserve. The government releases limited information about the GMB through state-controlled media, but does not allow independent observers to verify how much maize the GMB has imported or stored in its silos.²⁴ Donors and the U.N. resident representative and humanitarian coordinator have repeatedly tried to gather information about the GMB and Zimbabwe’s strategic maize reserve without success.²⁵ The lack of a comprehensive crop yield assessment, together with the scarcity of information about the GMB’s operations, makes it difficult for the international community to assess whether the GMB has the capacity to distribute sufficient maize in the coming year.²⁶ Past GMB distributions have been irregular and have not reached the outlying rural areas.²⁷ Many Zimbabweans do not have the money to buy GMB maize.

Representatives of NGOs and donor countries also reported that they were concerned the government would increasingly use food to “buy votes” in the run-up to the 2005 parliamentary elections, as witnessed in previous elections. For example, NGO representatives stated that during recent by-elections ZANU PF distributed food near polling sites, in an attempt to influence votes. Based on incidents reported during the 2000 presidential elections, several interviewees said that if food shortages materialized and if the GMB were the only source of grain, it was likely that in regions that generally supported the opposition, such as urban centers, it would be more difficult to obtain sufficient food in the run-up to the parliamentary election.²⁸

Government restrictions on access to resettled areas

According to international and national NGO representatives, the government continues to hamper their access to the resettled areas. As a result, vulnerable persons, including former farm workers, are largely excluded from food aid provided by the international food program.²⁹ Sources in the agricultural industry reported that the government restricts general distributions of international food in the resettled areas on the basis that such distributions would show that the land reform program has been a failure.³⁰

GMB distributions in the resettled areas have also been inadequate.³¹ The government reportedly perceives farm workers as supporters of the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC). It also asserts that farm workers who receive food aid become food aid dependent and are unwilling to work.³² Sources familiar with the farm workers’ situation have found, however, that food aid enables farm workers to work their own plots of land rendering them more self-sufficient and financially better off. Without food aid, farm workers are often compelled to work for less than minimum wage as casual farm laborers in order to buy food.³³

Reports of political interference with the international food pipeline

NGO representatives also reported that they were concerned that access to food would be undermined if incidents of political violence increased in the run-up to the 2005 parliamentary elections, as had occurred in earlier elections.³⁴ Several NGOs involved in distributing international food aid noted that ZANU PF supporters continue to interfere with food distributions in different areas of the country³⁵ and to intimidate persons who are suspected or actual MDC supporters.³⁶ These persons are then too afraid to collect food at distribution points. Further, some local authorities reportedly did not inform suspected or real MDC supporters about food registration exercises and/or food distributions.³⁷ ZANU PF and MDC politicians have reportedly claimed before and after food distributions that the distributions took place due to their efforts, in the expectation that the beneficiaries should support their party.³⁸ In some instances, involved communities or community leadership also reportedly excluded households marginalized by the community—often the most vulnerable members of the community, including widows, orphaned children of MDC supporters and other child-headed households—from food aid.³⁹

Donors have insisted that relief agencies closely monitor and verify the selection of beneficiaries before and after food distributions.⁴⁰ Relief agencies have established systems that enable members of the community to confidentially report incidents of manipulation, such as wrongful inclusion or exclusion of community members. Donor representatives note that these efforts have minimized exclusion errors and incidents of political manipulation.⁴¹ Several international NGOs and U.N. sources reported that the level of manipulation in Zimbabwe is below that in other countries, as generally the intended beneficiaries receive and are able to keep the food aid.⁴²

Human Rights Watch notes, however, that some forms of exclusion—such as of the highly marginalized groups mentioned above—or political manipulation are extremely difficult to monitor and correct under the existing system, which relies to a large extent on community leadership and cooperation with local authorities. These parties reportedly contribute to unequal access in food distribution.⁴³ Through focus groups and town meetings, international food agencies make great efforts to avoid exclusion. However, these fora can still be influenced by local authorities and can still leave out the most marginalized, voiceless members of the community. The beneficiary selection system could be strengthened by further minimizing the role of the community leadership, and by more deliberately seeking out the most marginalized households.⁴⁴

The role of donors

Human Rights Watch and other NGOs have criticized donors in Zimbabwe for their reluctance to provide food aid and/or agricultural inputs in resettled areas, where large numbers of former commercial farm workers and some newly resettled farmers are food insecure.⁴⁵ Since 2002, donors have provided minimal funding to food aid in the resettled areas despite claiming to provide food aid strictly on the basis of humanitarian principles of need.⁴⁶ Donors continue to be reluctant, as they do not want to be seen as supporting the land reform program.⁴⁷

In early 2004, donors funded two pilot projects in two resettled areas. If the general food distributions had not been stopped at the government’s request in May, the lessons learned from these projects would have informed donors about the feasibility of extending general food aid to other resettled areas. One donor representative noted, however, that these pilot projects were an inadequate response, as donors recognized they would have been unable to scale up the programs during the months of the beneficiaries’ peak needs.⁴⁸ The same representative also suggested that providing food aid to resettled farmers based on need would have meant only a small increase in the international food program, which already provided food aid to millions of Zimbabweans.

The CESCR also binds donor countries and international humanitarian organizations. The General Comments specifically forbid conditioning food assistance on political issues. More specifically, although the primary responsibility for securing the right to food rests with the Zimbabwean government, the international community is also obligated to do its utmost to ensure sustainable access to adequate food, which includes providing agricultural inputs as well as food aid. (For further information please refer to the Appendix, The Right to Food: Obligations under International Law.)

Although the government has stated that Zimbabwe does not require general food aid from the international donors in 2004-5, it has agreed that they can continue to provide targeted feeding. Donors should provide targeted feeding to all Zimbabweans in need, including those in the resettled areas. Donors should also provide agricultural inputs strictly on the basis of need throughout Zimbabwe.⁴⁹