BUSINESS REPORTER
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has extended by 14 months the mandate of reconstruction fund meant to repair Zimbabwe’s water and sanitation and power projects.
The fund, the Zimbabwe MultiDonor Trust Fund (the ZimFund), is a US$145m emergency programme established in 2010, to contribute to early recovery and development efforts in Zimbabwe by mobilising donor resources and promoting donor coordination in the country, so as to channel financial assistance to such efforts.
It was emergency response to a severe humanitarian crisis that manifested itself in the deadly cholera epidemic that was experienced in Zimbabwe in 2008/9.
AfDB administers the fund on behalf of the government.
The programme was supposed to end last month but has been extended to December 31, 2021 after it was disrupted by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Walter Odero, AfDB’s Officer in Charge for the Zimbabwe office.
In its 2019 annual report, ZimFund said it was set to complete all projects this year, adding that the water and sanitation situation in many parts of the country “still require more of ZimFund kind of interventions”.
“The ongoing impact of climate change on the water and sanitation, as well as power supply, adds on to the challenge.
As a result, there is need for continued and or additional financing of the ZimFund initiative to address climate change and adaptation climate change resilience of water, sanitation and energy infrastructure,” it said.
“The African Development Bank will, therefore, continue to collaborate with government of Zimbabwe and other stakeholders in ensuring that Zimbabwean enjoys their rights to access clean potable water and safe sanitation services.”
The second phase of the Urgent Water Supply and Sanitation and Rehabilitation Project sought to provide urgent support for the restoration, stabilisation and improvement of service delivery in water supply and sanitation in the urban centres of Harare, Chitungwiza, Redcliff and Ruwa to benefit a population of approximately 1.9m People.
The project was completed in September 2019.
The second phase of the emergency power infrastructure rehabilitation programme has seen 85% of targeted 265,000 customers having improved access to firm transformer capacity at transmission level, thus improved access to reliable electricity supply.
It has also seen three water and sewage treatment electricity substations rehabilitated and upgraded for remote control, thereby minimising outages and enabling water and sewage treatment.
