Australia pledges support for new Zimbabwe gov’t
APA-Harare (Zimbabwe) Australia on Monday donated US$5 million towards Zimbabwe’s fight against cholera and pledged more support to tackle other challenges facing the southern African nation in the health, education and agricultural sectors.
Publié le 16 février 2009 Lecture : 1 minute.
Australian foreign minister Stephen Smith said in a statement released Monday that the additional funding was part of his country’s pledge to assist the new Zimbabwe government to tackle the numerous challenges faced by Zimbabwe. Smith said the funding followed a conversation he had with newly appointed Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai last Friday following the inauguration of a power-sharing government between Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and ZANU PF of President Robert Mugabe. Smith said he told Tsvangirai that the Australian government “stood with him as he confronted the enormous challenges faced by the people of Zimbabwe. ” “I also told Prime Minister Tsvangirai Australia will immediately provide additional emergency assistance of US$5 million to the people of Zimbabwe to address the escalating cholera epidemic,” the Australian foreign minister said. The United Nations has reported more than 73,000 cases of cholera in Zimbabwe and over 3,500 deaths since the outbreak started in August last year. The cholera epidemic is the worst in modern day Zimbabwe and the worst in Africa for several years. Smith said the US$5 million would be channelled through the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and would targeted vulnerable people in rural and urban areas. The assistance comprises US$3 million to UNICEF for its emergency water and sanitation program in Zimbabwe and US$2 million to its vital medicines support programme. Australia is the fifth-largest donor to humanitarian appeals for Zimbabwe, after the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Commission and the Netherlands. Smith also announced that the Australian government was considering how it could best support the new Zimbabwe government. “The government is carefully and urgently examining what assistance it can give particularly in the health, education, food security and agriculture areas,” Smith said. Australia is one of the Western countries that imposed sanctions against President Mugabe’s government in 2002 in retaliation to what they said were human rights abuses by the Zimbabwean regime.
