For the past four months, the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe has hit headlines in international news media and drawn widespread condemnation. Over 2,770 deaths (and still counting) have been reported from more than 50,000 reported cases of cholera infections since August 2008. It is expected that more people risk infection unless the cholera epidemic is swiftly contained.
Responses to the cholera outbreak have been wide and varied. Predictably, the ‘government’ of Zimbabwe’s initial reaction ranged from denying that there was a cholera epidemic, to attributing the outbreak to EU and US ‘sanctions’ imposed on ZANU-PF ruling elites, and to an appeal for international assistance. Amongst donors and bilateral agencies, the response has been more robust. The European Commission provided US$12 million, while the British government pledged $15 million to the fight against cholera. UNICEF is reported to have secured sufficient chemicals to treat Harare’s main water supply for two to three weeks, with another four months’ worth of supplies on their way. UNICEF is also distributing water purification tablets and supplying 360,000 litres of clean water daily to Harare’s poorest suburbs. USAID/OFDA (Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance) has pledged $6.8 million in emergency assistance for the cholera outbreak.
Although the donor and NGO response to the cholera outbreak is commendable, it does not focus enough attention on the underlying factors that have contributed to the crisis. A key contributory factor has, perhaps, been Zimbabwe’s water policy, adopted in 1998 as part of the broad water sector reform programme. Two key principles lie at the heart of the water reform policy. First, ‘water was to be treated as an economic good’, with payment required for service provision -- the ‘water user pays’ principle. The argument was that, by attaching a price to water, consumers would use it more efficiently, and water fees would enable the national water authority to invest in improving water supply to residents.
Second, the reform sought to limit the role of the state and local authorities (i.e., city and rural district councils) in water management, and led to the devolution of responsibilities for water supply and management to a national water authority, the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA). In short, ZINWA is responsible for the supply and management of domestic water in urban areas. ZINWA also operates on a commercial and self-financing basis, whereby it provides its services at a significant fee to generate the revenue it needs to finance its administrative and water supply functions.
Despite the promise of the water reform, the stories that are emerging from Zimbabwe indicate that, the urban areas, particularly Harare, are currently epicentres of an unprecedented cholera epidemic. What went wrong?
There are several contributory factors, some intrinsic to the water policy itself, while others are tied to the political and economic crisis. First, ZINWA inherited a sophisticated, but old, network of urban water supply infrastructure from local authorities. The infrastructure required effective maintenance and management, ranging from repair of broken-down pipes to wastewater treatment. ZINWA, however, lacked the human, technical and financial resources to undertake these tasks, with the result that infrastructure fell into disrepair, leaks were not repaired and sewage flowed in the streets of poorer and densely populated suburbs, such as Budiriro, Tafara, Mabvuku, and St. Marys.
Second, with twelve digit inflation and high levels of unemployment, treating water as an economic good became a fanciful proposition post 2000. This was exacerbated by the fact that water treatment chemicals are imported, and require foreign currency to be purchased. Foreign currency in Zimbabwe is largely non-existent on the formal market, though there is increasing shift towards the formal adoption of US dollars (or British Pounds and South African Rand) in daily transactions. In this context of economic crisis, with high inflation, high unemployment, and lack of foreign currency, ZINWA did not have the financial resources to manage and supply safe water to residents. ZINWA has had to depend on the central bank to finance its core activities. In short, lack of money also meant that ZINWA could not afford to finance its core activities, including the purchasing of water treatment chemicals.
The current intractable political crisis, and its implications on the economy, and policy environment, has wreaked havoc on the neo-liberal principles that underpinned the water reform. In other words, the post-2000 political developments presented the architects of water reform with an unexpected situation. . The current political crisis distracts the political leadership from an effective response to the roots of the recent cholera outbreak, thereby undermining efforts to develop a long-term policy solution. Such a solution may range from repairing the water supply infrastructure, to making access to safe water a right for poor people.
It is vital to ask three key questions. First, does the cholera outbreak warrant a re-think of domestic water supply policy as promoted in global water policy reforms of the 1990s? Second, to what extent has water policy reform contributed to the deterioration of safe water supply and sanitation, exacerbation of the political crisis and state fragility in Zimbabwe? And third, how can NGOs, donors and bilateral agencies best respond to immediate and long-term urban water supply and sanitation needs to prevent a future cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe? By asking these questions we seek to probe a little more deeply into the roots of current cholera outbreak and to draw lessons and options for future policy in the sector.
This blog post features the author's personal view and does not represent the view of ODI.
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re: The cholera crisis in Zimbabwe: Understanding the policy and politics @ Thursday, January 29, 2009 7:00 AM
Well said. Another contributory factor has been the breakdown of service delivery in local authorities as a result of the economic collapse. The Harare City council has not been collecting refuse for months. In areas like Budiriro, where the cholera outbreak was quite severe, the situation was compunded by an inefficient sewage disposal system as well as uncollected refuse.
re: The cholera crisis in Zimbabwe: Understanding the policy and politics @ Thursday, January 29, 2009 11:22 AM
You talked about the water act of 1998. I have read that act. To me it sounded OK, but the fact is our situation has deteriorated sariously. Suggest for us policy options that could replace this act, in the short term that would blend with the prevailing mess.
This is a good piece Man Sobie.
re: The cholera crisis in Zimbabwe: Understanding the policy and politics @ Friday, January 30, 2009 6:55 PM
the government,NGOs & well wishers could help by providing more chemicals that can be administered directly by the households - this would contribute significantly to the decline in new cases of cholera. the cities main water supply has challenges that need time and resources which we dont have to restore - electricity, shortage of manpower, disfunctional infrastructure etc therefore water chemicals to the city councils alone may not contribute significantly to the reduction of new cases. we also have rural areas which are worst hit because of lack of water provision infrastructure - access to the chemicals that household administer themselves will contribute significantly.
re: The cholera crisis in Zimbabwe: Understanding the policy and politics @ Tuesday, February 03, 2009 12:28 PM
Well stated. However, I think the goverment and ZINWA should also shoulder the blame. If you compare and contrast the cholera outbreak in Harare and Bulawayo you will understand why I say the govenmentment should shoulder some blame. The decision to take water and sewer services from city councils was disguised as meant to enhance service delivery while we all know that it was politically motivated. Bulawayo city council resisted this move and while they were affected by the outbreak, the scale can't be compared to that of Harare.
In 2005, the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA), apublic interest environmental law organisation that I work for litigated a case in Chitungwiza. We took the municipality to court for failing to repair sewer pipes. This was a violation of the Public Health Act, Environmental Management Act and the Constitution of Zimbabwe. ZELA won the case but the challenge was enforcement of the judgement.
On yearly basis , ZINWA comes up with a budget and no attepmts are made to set aside money to comply with this court order yet we hear of money being used for things that are not considered a priority. So, yes, there are challenges brought about the sanctions and the decision to make water an economic good, but I am also convinced that the failure to "prioritise" by ZINWA also contributed to this outbreak
The way forward in my humble opinion is to have economic, social and environmental rights recognised in the constitution so that government will be constituionally responsible for service delivery.
re: The cholera crisis in Zimbabwe: Understanding the policy and politics @ Thursday, February 12, 2009 2:54 PM
First the water supply system in Harare, constructed during the colonial period was never replaced after independence. As a result, it cannot support the population levels where initially it catered for a fraction of the population of today. Second, failure to acknowledge informal settlements by the government also resulted in the so-called informal settlers vandalising this already overburdened system. This resulted in system losses of at least 30% (based on a study I was involved in), and in some cases in the contamination of the treated water during conveyance. I think to start with the Harare system needs an overhaul, i.e. new pumps (when we did our study, only one pump was working, the other was beyond repair), new pipes taking into account the size of the population and the new settlements. Continuing to pour money into the system as it is now is only short term because(1) it leaves some people without water because the demand exceeds the supply (2) leaves some people at risk of contracting waterborne diseases when the system is vandalised, which I think is inevitable if Government policy continues to sideline servicing informal settlements.
re: The cholera crisis in Zimbabwe: Understanding the policy and politics @ Saturday, March 07, 2009 1:26 PM
My contribution is coming well after the GoZ reversed its policy position on water supply. Local authorities have been directed to re-take management of water from ZINWA, an exercise which was to have been completed by the 28th of February 2009. Understandably, no handover takeover from Zinwa to the councils was succesfully completed by that deadline, for a number of reasons.
My view is that the Cholera crisis is far deeper than the eye can see. Further analysis essentially points to Zimbabwe's poor governance system. The relationship between central and local governments is not healthy. We have gravitated over the years since independence from strong central and local goverments to the current situation where we have a strong central government and weak (if not very weak) local governments. A process of disempowering of our local governments has happened silently. My argument is premised on the fact that local authorities, singulalry and as a collective, through their associations (UCAZ and ARDCZ) were the first to advise Central Government that the takeover of water by ZINWA was not the solution to the water problems that were being facedby consumers. In other words, the issue was not of who is managing the water distribution. The matter was about investing more in water infrastructure (from storage, distribution, access etc) as well as improving water usage. Central Government did not listen, it was unresponsive. The defence was simply that its a cabinet decision. It makes one think that Cabinet is not composed of human beings who can accept that they have erred and reverse their policy stance. That the reversal came only after a crisis of this proportion is indicative of lack of responsiveness. Local authorities were not on their own in advising government that its policy direction was wrong. Members of Parliament, civic organizations and academics all made it known to Government that ZINWA had no capacity to deliver. The all-too-powerful central government shut its ears and would not hear of that.
The other level of link between the water crisis and governnace is demonstrated in the two institutions that have been tried in managing water treatment and distribution. The councils are democratically elected, and can be made to account by residents if they fail to deliver. ZINWA is not like that. It is a quasi-government body, which initially was run by a Government appointed Chairperson (who worked on the understanding that he was an executive chairperson like the set-up at ZESA Holdings under Dr Gata) and later run by the Minister responsible for Water. The ZINWA Board was not accountable to the consumers but to Government (vertical and upward accountability). By design therefore ZINWA assumed water distribution functions in all councils as an institution without any experience in horizontal and downward accountability.
Other contributors are right in pointing out that ZINWA inherited a decaying infrastructure. What is also true is that ZINWA is now bequething to local councils antiquated infrastructure. In many cases, it has failed to hand back what it inherited from the councils. In two councils that I am familiar with, the vehicles and pumps that ZINWA received from the councils can not be accounted for. They just diasppeared without a trace. There is the usual finger-pointing, ZINWA staff who were disgruntled with their meager pay, managers who were selling the equipment and thieves from the neighbourhood. The blame game continues.
While we all want to rush to have clean water flowing in our pipes, I think Zimbabweans should take time to reflect on the governance systems we have in place. My point is that we need a strong central government, but equally we need strong local government system that is constituionalized. Further, we need to promote responsiveness from our Central Government. For it to have waited for a crisis of this proportion to change its policy stance is bad.
Further, we are so much engrossed in the emergency and humanitarian response, to the point where I think we are losing sight of the bigger picture, that the root of the problem lies in delapidated and inadequate infrastructre (sewer and water). For a long time, we have heard about Kunzvi dam, Zambezi water pipeline and many other examples. All these have not seen the light of the day.
Government needs to learn to govern together with its sub-national local government institutions. We should lobby for a local government system where local authorities seize to be 'mere extensions of the state' but to be a competent order of government entrenched in the constitution, and with enabling legislation. Lastly, we must address the root problem by investing more in water and sewer infrastructure. Without that, Cholera is here to stay, may be not to the same proportion, but it wil continue to rob us of our beloved ones and us.
