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Zimbabwe's 2007 National Budget Speech
Read the Minister of Finance's 2007 budget speech.

Zimbabwe ignores UN over urban demolitions
Some 18 months after launching a brutal campaign of urban demolitions and forced evictions, the government of Zimbabwe has ignored all the recommendations contained in a highly critical United Nations report, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum said in a recent report. Read more
Read Political Repression disguised as Civic Mindedness: Operation Murambatsvina one year later
Visit the HRForum fact sheet

WOZA/MOZA demonstrators viciously beaten and arrested on International Human Rights Defenders' Day
At least 63 Women of Zimbabwe Arise and four Men of Zimbabwe Arise members, as well as six babies were arrested this morning, during a peaceful launch of the People’s Charter.
Read more
Read the International Bar Association statement
Read all WOZA statements
Visit the WOZA fact sheet

WOZA MOYA November 2006
There are three kinds of violence, including state-sponsored violence, that are causing Zimbabweans to die young: Violence of the FIST, Violence of the TONGUE and Violence of the HEART. Help us to expose this violence and hold those who practice it accountable. Read the latest Woza Moya

Women demand 50-50 share of political power
At least 50 Zimbabwean women demonstrated in Harare recently demanding a 50 percent share of the country’s political power. The demonstration was organised by the Women in Politics Support Unit (WiPSU), a civic group that promotes the participation of women in issues of governance. Read more
Visit the WiPSU fact sheet
Read the ZESN statement: Supporting the 50 – 50 campaign

WiPSU Media Monitoring Report
In order to conduct a systematic analysis of how women are covered in the media, Women in Politics Support Unit, WiPSU, initiated an internal data capturing process where a daily monitoring of newspapers would be conducted and any article on women Parliamentarians and councilors would be collected. The articles are analyzed to give an overview of how women are portrayed and the implications of that portrayal on women and women's issues in Zimbabwe. Read more

16 Days Campaign: Media needs to step up coverage on gender issues all year round
Media did not invent gender inequalities or any form of social inequality for that matter. Yet media is central to both knowingly and unwittingly promoting gender inequalities. By providing a particular set of representations, media feeds off and feeds into social assumptions and practices that ultimately undermine the advancement of women. Read more from Tawana Kupe

Local government elections and the Zimbabwe voter
University of Zimbabwe political studies lecturer Eldred Masunungure says MDC must go back to the drawing board if it is to win back the confidence of the people. Read more

Govt forges ahead with Big Brother legislation
The Zimbabwe Government is forging ahead with the proposed spying legislation after drafting a new version of the Interception of Communications Bill (ICB) that has failed to fully address the concerns of the Parliamentary Legal Committee and stakeholders in the communications sector. Read more
Visit the index of articles on the ICB

View legislation online here

Are restrictions on Freedom of the Press ever justified?
This question was put to some wise men and women of the world, representing diverse beliefs and religions. Read more from Bulb Magazine

Zimbabwe Peace Project monthly monitoring report
The state has also extended its hands into controlling the activities of kraal heads while this has been going on for some time, the practice took an ugly turn during the local government elections with some traditional leaders being victimised for not being pro ruling party. Read more
Also by ZPP: Hunger will finish us off, say the elderly and handicapped. Read more
Visit the ZPP fact sheet

Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force statement on capture of elephants
National Park is fairly widespread by now. I have just returned from a 3-week trip and was given the distressing information while I was out of the country. I released the story to the media while I was away and now that I am back, I would like to state that the ZCTF is disgusted and disappointed that this cruel practice has been allowed to take place. Read more
Read the Shearwater statement
Read the SPCA statement

Australia provides emergency food aid to Zimbabwe
Australia will provide AUD$1 million in emergency food aid for Zimbabwe through the World Food Programme. This assistance comes on top of Australia’s AUD$3 contribution to international humanitarian aid relief efforts for Zimbabwe in 2005-2006.
Read more

Farm leases have no collateral value
It is almost five years since the government first stated that its policy on agricultural land tenure would be the issue of 99-year leases to farmers, ownership of the land being vested in the state. Over those years, there were repeated assurances that the issue of the leases was imminent. Read more from Erich Bloch
Read the Land Acquisition Act
Read the JAG statement: Justice for Agriculture viewpoint on '99-year leases'

A view of how aid might change
Inadequate foreign aid has not been the cause of Africa's problems. More important factors have been political oppression, a clash of values between donors and recipients, and an indifference to economics - which led to Africa's losing half its markets to other developing countries between 1970 and 1990. But to the extent that Western countries still have influence over events, the dwindling contribution of aid could be focused better. Read more

10 ways of prospering without aid
The high cost of books in Africa is a de facto tax on ideas. Publishers in rich countries should allow African publishers to print a limited run of their books. If the authors forgo royalties and publishers co-operate, locally printed versions could sell at a fifth of the foreign price. Read more

Foreign aid: How to sink a continent
There’s consensus that aid is best given directly to governments. The logic is that development can be done only by states and their peoples. It is also much cheaper to give money directly to governments. But serious money should be given only to governments with the will and capacity to spend it on development. Thus only Botswana would truly qualify for aid because its government is doing the right things. But Botswana doesn’t need aid. Why? Because it is doing the right things. Read more

Tell the world, wise grandmother
That it is not at all like yesteryear
When the medicine man could rush to the rescue.
It is AIDS, grandmother.
Not like any of the other sicknesses,
Not at all.

Read more of the poem Not At All by Nasabanji E. Phiri

Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights statement on World AIDS Day
It has been shown that ‘User Fees’ contribute only 2% of the total health service budget. We urge the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare to work towards measures that ensure that People Living with HIV/AIDS are exempt from all health care fees in the public health care system. These fees do not aid in solving the funding problem in the health service but do prevent the poor from exercising their right to seek much needed medical attention and access treatment. Read more
Visit the ZADHR fact sheet

NASCOH statement on World AIDS Day 2006
Despite the high vulnerability to sexual abuse among people with disabilities, this sector has largely been marginalized from HIV and AIDS intervention programmes. The marginalisation and social exclusion of people with disabilities from the development arena has resulted in the masking and underplaying of an issue that has been addressed comprehensively in the wider society: the issue of the prevalence of HIV/AIDS among people with disabilities. Read more from the National Association of Societies for the Care of the Handicapped.

Zimbabwean society has not yet accepted disability
It’s not all gloom and doom in the disability world. Meeting Benhilda Marume, better known as the trend-setting Tamara of Studio 263 fame, one is struck by her zest for life, her keen intelligence, her keen and quick wit, her quick and engaging smile, and her boundless energy. Her engaging manner masks a deep-seated problem: her dissatisfaction with the Zimbabwean culture for failing to come to terms with the reality of disability, for stigmatising it as a curse, and for discriminating blatantly against people with disabilities with relative impunity. Read more
Visit the NASCOH fact sheet

Sports programme helps children fight AIDS and abuse in Zimbabwe
Betty Mahomva, 9, ties her hair into a ponytail, stretches her legs and concentrates. She and her classmates are playing a game, but they are also learning an important lesson – how to avoid HIV/AIDS. Read more from UNICEF

CIDA supports ZVITAMBO HIV and AIDS Prevention and Care for Mothers and Children Programme
Courageous Lucia Tsvangira and her six-month baby Chido sit peacefully under a tent at Chirumanzu District Hospital 200km from Harare, as speaker after speaker take to the podium at the launch of the second phase of the ZVITAMBO Aids and Prevention Program in Zimbabwe. Read more
Visit the ZVITAMBO fact sheet

Five-year plan to battle HIV/AIDS on farms launched
Zimbabwe's government is launching a five-year plan to combat HIV/AIDS in the agricultural sector after realising the impact of the pandemic on farming. Read more

New figures show AIDS epidemic spreading
Despite a major scale-up in antiretroviral treatment, which reached more than one million people in sub-Saharan Africa by June 2006, the area accounted for almost three-quarters of AIDS-related deaths. Overall, the region is now home to an estimated 24.7 million HIV-infected people, up from 22.6 million two years ago. Read more

UN Report: Many more Zimbabwean health workers could emigrate
A United Nations report says two-thirds of Zimbabwe's remaining health care workers intend to leave the country, pointing to a bleaker future for a national health system that is already overburdened by the demands of the HIV-AIDS pandemic. Read more

Incest victims struggle in silence
Incest (as in incestuous rape), according to researchers, is one of the most under-reported crimes in many societies. In Zimbabwe, for instance, the Victim Friendly Courts released statistics to the effect that of the 1 571 child sexual abuse cases reported between January and August this year, only 56 were incest-related. Read more

A success story for girls' education in Zimbabwe
"For most girls in Zimbabwe, access to an education is really a privilege and not a right," says Winnie Farao, 26, explaining how the high cost of education, exacerbated by hyperinflation, has made girls’ education a "second priority" in her country. Read more

Zimbabwe could face expulsion from IMF
An International Monetary Fund (IMF) team will visit Harare next month for an assessment mission that could lead to the expulsion of debt-ridden Zimbabwe from the global lending body, officials said on Wednesday. Although no exact date has been set, officials said that a delegation will embark on a visit early next month. Read more from the Mail & Guardian

Foreign aid: This kind of 'help' is just no help at all
Increasingly, NGOs are becoming the spending agents of government development agencies, and are losing their independence. One consequence of their increasing role in Africa has been the atrophy of the muscles of the State in Africa, which in turn erodes loyalty to the State - and I think this goes to the heart of the problems that beset Africa, from corruption to low domestic savings. Read more