The Global Protest Against In-Equality in Health and Education Tops ZIMCODD Agenda.

By Nevson Mpofu

ZIMCODD [Zimbabwe Coalition On Debt and Development ] chaperoned by five other organisations Zimbabwe Council of Churches  ,Youth Empowerment and Transformation Trust , Transparency International Zimbabwe , Women and Law Southern Africa and Female Students Network has taken a tight staunch against in-equalities .These disparities are related to lack of access to equal opportunities and rights  to Health , Education , Water and sanitation . These are the main humanitarian sectors that matters to the majority in the World particularly Zimbabwe.

Addressing a full press pack of journalists from several media houses represented at a hotel in Harare Zimbabwe Council of Churches Director Reverend Gwese said the growing wave of adverse effects of in-equalities has reached alarming levels to a certain extent that absolute poverty has increased.

‘’In-Equalities have become a common human shadow that tends to erode social fabric of people around the World .In Zimbabwe it has reached  high alarming levels . The effects erodes human dignity, social, disharmony, mistrust, societal violence, economic regression and deepening poverty.

Reverend Gwese adds in honest tones that in-equalities have grown to turn bad against humanity. This he further gets deep down with much concern pointing out on the growing grant corruption.

‘’Increasing grant corruption is the major causative challenge that we need to fight against in this World. However in Zimbabwe it has grown much higher than anywhere because of the economic challenges biting around’’.

ZIMCODD and Zimbabwe Council of Churches are raising voices at a time the World Economic Forum is taking Commercial centre stage for Global Economic development in Davos, Switzerland. . The discussion has resonated on matters of profit and wealth increase at Global level. This is done to build a new plat-foam of Global Economies sustaining 7 billion people of the World.

ZIMCODD Director Janet Zhou added that Civil Society organisations are much concerned with the Global challenges of in-equalities. She said these have reached an extent which has exposed many people into sheer poverty.

‘’This is a Global issue but Zimbabwe in particular is a wail of our concern. As a civil society we are at it again looking at fighting in-equalities in specific areas of humanitarian needs at heart. These are Health, Education, water and sanitation, food security and even information.’’

‘’This is evidenced by the on-going World Economic Forum that is objected to the discussion of how it can grow its profits and wealth and make this World look better. The need is to decrease poverty, hunger and those number of challenges at hand.

‘’The Global Protest Against In-Equalities is a  worth issue to look at because it  calls for Governments to remain accountable , transparency , surveillance against what  impacts negatively like corruption . The Fight In-Equalities Alliance is a movement to bring sanity at Global level. However we start it from here working together.’’

Ivy Chimedza , WILSA [Women and Law Southern Africa said  the need to fight in –equalities  is a must since  many women are affected  during such times when in-equalities tend to grow driven by  by  corruption .

‘’During such times women are more impacted negatively because of growing in-equalities.  The fact is corruption is worm that has caused much havoc. However it becomes a Gender issue at hand because women are affected.

‘’Once there is growing massive corruption, In-Equalities grow out of that. Corruption will then affect more on women than those who cause it. In-Equalities grow, much to a bitter extent affecting women who become the affected.

Why Fighting In-Equalities Matters

Janet Zhou , Ivy Chimedza and Tendai Bobo all  carried the similar notion that once in-equalities exist , there is the issue of gender in-equalities since women become more affected . Ivy reiterated with tears of concern

‘’We are fighting a cause for concern to save failure of the Sustainable Development Goals with  special focus on those affecting women at large . We take the fight in collective action to save certain goals with special focus on Gender, Health, food security, and Education, water and sanitation and poverty eradication.

In-Equality campaign and advocacy action plan. We have to take the message that fighting inequalities is saving women, health, their education, improving their food security, water and sanitation to end communicable diseases. Tendai Bobo of ZIMCODD pronounces In-Equality as a default caused by a certain sex that will make the other have challenges.

‘’The Fight In-Equality Campaign does not target any person but what we see is cause of an impact that affects people. This is Global because In-Equalities are Global.  We there-fore need to take balanced action to save all the people.’’

Tafadzwa Chikumbu –ZIMCODD.

Facilitator of the program highlighted the thorny issues and impacting challenges. His focus as the core theme resonated on the Health aspect in country. He assured Press ZIMCODD had invited Media to look at the Global Protest to Fight In-Equality in Health and Education mainly.

‘’ The Press Statement is on the Global Protest to Fight In-Equality. We are looking at sectors like Health and Education with the poor in mind ‘’

ZIMCODD elucidates on its commitment to fight in-equality in a fair plying field looking first in consideration the poor.

 ‘’ This Press Conference is affirming our commitment to fighting in-equality as we seek to raise our concerns and proffer recommendations.’’

Asked a challenging question by this Journalist on why they did not look at this categorically.  There is Primary Health, Secondary and Tertiary Health.

‘’ We looked at Health as a whole not like at one category as a standalone ‘’. We are mainly looking at the poor because they are the many, rich are the few ‘’.

Un-Equal Access to Health and Education..

Zimbabwe currently has wide unequal access to Health. Poor rural areas lack adequate health-care, nutrition and access to water and sanitation.  Urban communities like Budiriro have suffered a big blow. Good example is the spread of communicable diseases like cholera.

On 5 September 2019 a local daily paper carried a sad story of a woman and her child who died at Parirenyatwa after hospital health professional staff was not available for help. It is worrying because the poor are those who seek help from central Government   hospitals. The elite use Private Hospitals at most.

Hyper-Inflation has made it difficult for many children to proceed with their education in many parts of the country.  Standards in Public Education Institutions have gone down.  Education In-Equalities have gone so high to an extent that this is stirring more and more poverty in the country.  According to the United Nations Development Programme, Zimbabwe ranks 126 out of 162 countries in the Gender In-Equality Index of 2018. This explains serious disparities between men and women.  Out of the 350 National Assembly and Senate Members, only 122 are women who constitute 35%.  This could be an example of challenges we have in over-coming in-equalities.