Zimbabwe would like to join other countries in expressing our appreciation of IFAD's  activities in the African region and to share our expectations and contribution to the deliberations of this session. The theme for this Session, “innovation challenges for the rural poor” could not have been discussed at a more appropriate time than now.

Governments in the developing world face formidable challenges as they strive to achieve food security and reduce poverty in pursuit of the MDGs and the World Food Summit Declarations. These challenges include high poverty rates and high income inequality, poor infrastructure, high external debts, soil degradation, increasing water scarcity, desertification, and climate change as well as the HIV/AIDS pandemic and other debilitating diseases such as malaria. However, some of these challenges can be resolved or alleviated by innovations that target optimal utilisation of available natural resources at community level.

While appreciating the importance of the land redistribution process and agrarian reforms in alleviating poverty, the Government of Zimbabwe fully recognizes the need to fully utilise our agricultural potential to increase food and agricultural production so as to guarantee sustainable food security. It recognizes that there are new challenges in order to achieve full utilization of the productive resources. For instance, we are undertaking a land audit to determine how the beneficiaries of the agrarian reform can best utilize this resource. Preliminary indications suggest the need for new initiatives in policies, institutions, regulatory frameworks and investment.

My delegation is concerned that partners such as IFAD whose focus is the rural poor seem to be taking a back seat, as some of the members of the board tend to bring in political considerations that derail them from focusing on the real issues. For instance, little is being done to address the afore-mentioned issues. Another very crucial area would be for IFAD to assist rural traders to invest in businesses that will provide linkages between production and the disposal of produce such as preservation, value addition, distribution and marketing.

While we note with satisfaction the efforts by IFAD to encourage governments to capacitate women farmers, we would like to urge that concerted efforts be made to ensure that there is gender balance in women's access to productive resources. Recent case studies on the same provide real practical implementation challenges that require our attention. For instance, statistics have shown that women make up the majority of the rural poor. Therefore, addressing their plight would go a long way in reducing rural poverty.

The other main impediment to increasing food production particularly cereals, has been the persistent droughts experienced in 2001/2002 and 2004/2005 seasons.  The Government of Zimbabwe has committed adequate resources towards feeding its own people, as every effort has been made to supplement local production with imports and donations from friendly nations and organizations. The implementation of the Accelerated Irrigation Rehabilitation and Development Programme is set to increase the area under irrigation. In an attempt to increase productivity in the rural areas, particular attention is being given to dam construction and the development of small scale irrigation schemes and other efficient water saving technologies. Further, we are implementing other programmes that will act as catalysts to food production; among which are:

• The Rural Electrification Programme that is intended to draw in the rural population into the productive aspects of the modern sector;
• The Rural Capital Development Programme, which is looking into the upgrading and expansion of rural infrastructure, e.g. schools, clinics, roads and rural housing;
• The Import Substitution and Value Addition Programme, which is encouraging the processing of primary products beyond household level; the private sector has always taken a lead in this area. This initiative is being buttressed by the economic turn around programme in which all stakeholders are making meaningful contribution with the support of the central bank.

These and other ongoing poverty reduction strategies aim at improving the situation of the rural poor. We see a role for IFAD in some of these initiatives

The 2005/06 rainy season has offered us a new ray of hope of recovery as we have received significant rainfall. Despite a shortage of fertilizers the government has put in place measures that will ensure a national strategic grain reserve is maintained at all times. To further guarantee household food security, measures are being sought to involve all stakeholders such as farmers, bankers and the agro-industry, as well as local and bilateral partners. In this strategy we wish to reiterate the importance of agricultural financing by government, the business community and financial institutions such as IFAD. To this end, we would like to see IFAD coming on board with us to strengthen the local institutions and help communities to overcome barriers to attaining food security. We cherish the experience we gained through the IFAD funded Dry Areas Development Programme in Zimbabwe to the extent that we continued to pursue the programme on our own, even after the suspension of the programme.

Despite these limitations, it remains the desire of the Government of Zimbabwe to fully meet its obligations to the international financial institutions, if only to improve its relations and creditworthiness. We have already made substantial payments to the IMF and other international partners even in the absence of balance of payments support or significant foreign inflows. We hope to conclude the current negotiations for the rescheduling of our repayments to IFAD soon, as we would like to participate fully in the seventh replenishment.
 
As my delegation has stated in the past, suspension of community-based programmes due to overdue payments is not the best option to deal with arrears as it takes away the momentum gained and damages the mutual understanding between the implementing partners and the recipient communities. More humane options to address situations where countries fail to meet their obligations timely should be seriously considered. In pursuing these options we also need to recognize that the causes are not homogenous, so the concept of  “one size fit all “ will not  address  the fundamentals within a particular community or country.

On governance matters, i.e. the issues of voting rights, regional representation and the role of the executive board during the consultations on the Seventh Replenishment are cause for concern. My delegation shares the views that have been aired my many others that have urged IFAD to revisit its position on the same. We are generally concerned about the imbalance in the allocation of seats across the various regions. Continuing to base the system on the level of financial contribution alone without due regard to the size of the geographic area bring about questions of unfairness. Therefore, the need to increase financial inflows should not justify the compromise of the voting rights of the membership across regions. We understand that this is an area that is now receiving attention in the Executive Board but we wish that this issue be dealt with in a transparent manner, possibly through an open committee, as it is an issue of great interest to all.

Finally, on the Performance Based Allocation System (PBAS), we registered our concerns when the topic was first tabled and begrudgingly agreed to proceed with the pilot phase. From what we have seen so far, our concerns remain valid. Our country programme was wound up end of 2002 yet since the PBAS started we get assessed. We feel that a more honest position would be to clearly state that the country programme is on suspension rather than give the membership the impression that there is an IFAD programme that needs evaluation. We believe that the PBAS should provide even for that since at one time or the other there will be some members that are suspension.