Church wades into regional integration

TENDAI BHEBE IN BULAWAYO 

African countries are failing to trade with each other due to poor structural systems and unresolved conflicts, the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC) has said.

Regional integration has been limited because the church has not been viewed to have the capacity to discuss economic situations, ZCC youth leader Karen Manzera said.

She said private players participation in regional integration has become limited in the SADC and even at higher levels.

“Africa is not actually trading within itself because of poor structures and conflicts in the SADC and even beyond, “ Manzera said, adding that the church could play a key role, as it is a symbol of peace.

“The church should be at the front to advocate for peace, sustainable mining, strengthening regional integration with good resource management.”

Meanwhile, ZCC environmental youth leader Nkosilathi Bako said the church should build good relations with policymakers for the development of the country.

“The youths regret the stratification and castration of the church in terms of economic governance and call upon the church to continue playing its prophetic role of safeguarding and keeping watch on the dignity of the citizens.

“The church should, through its structures, deepen the linkages with policymakers and together with the youths, demand full disclosure of government incomes, expenditures, and the debts that are contracted, “he said.

Bako said the burden of Zimbabwe’s debt was having a negative impact on the youths in the country.

“This unsustainable debt has massively shrunk the country’s fiscal space thereby inhibiting strong government support for social development programmes,” he said.

In 2016, the International Labor Organisation survey found that Zimbabwean youths were among the world’s poorest, living in extreme poverty.

In 2018, the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission posited that the youths were facing challenges such as unaffordable education, lack of access to health care due to excessive poverty, child marriages and sexual abuse of young women among others.