The third National Citizens Convention (NCC) will address issues tied to Zimbabwe’s current political and economic struggles, an official of Citizens Manifesto has revealed.
Citizens Manifesto, which is a coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs), will hold the convention from 4 November to 6 November in line with the Covid-19 regulations.
Addressing newsmen at the Bulawayo Media Centre, one of the coordinators of the gathering, Mvuselelo Huni, said the online and onsite convention would interrogate key questions around Zimbabwe’s current challenges.
It is understood that the pandemic has adversely impacted the poor and vulnerable citizens of the country, as well as small and informal businesses, and small-scale agricultural producers.
Zimbabwe’s official unemployment rate, according to a UNDP report, stands at 11 percent although the vast majority of the people considered to be employed are engaged in low paying temporary insecure work and petty trade in the informal sector.
Additionally, according to the UNDP study, the country’s health sector remains fragile and under-resourced, both in terms of financial and human resources.
Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health and Child Care says there are 1.6 physicians and 7.2 nurses for every 10,000 people05, against WHO recommendations of 4.45 doctors, nurses and midwives (health workers) per 1,000 population needed to meet the SDGs.
Furthermore, in recent times, many citizens of the country have reportedly been brutalised and arrested for speaking out against the Emmerson Mnangagwa administration.
‘The key aim of the convention is to create an inclusive environment for citizens to participate in the national discourse, defining and building solidarity towards this year’s theme, ‘NoneButOurselves: Re-imagining the Future We Want Post-Covid-19’, Huni said.
‘Zimbabwe is a multiply wounded nation, with a lingering legacy of trauma, division, and polarisation that has caused many of us to lead out of wildness in our communities, in our institutions and most notably in our political space.
‘The deepening polarisation and fragmentation has frayed our social fabric and numbered our sense of solidarity in facing the collective challenges we face as a nation.
‘By reconnecting to each other and to the soul of Zimbabwe, we believe that a more dignified and reciprocal social contract based on broad-based inclusion becomes possible’.
Source: New Zimbabwe
Photo source: Paul Kagame
