Of the ‘lost’ 15 billion diamond revenue and why Zimbabwe, now more than ever, should consider the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative

Barely two weeks after the Global Conference on the Extractive Industry’s Transparency Initiative (EITI) between the 24^th and the 25^th of February in Lima Peru, the president of Zimbabwe R.G Mugabe publicly stated that an estimated 15 Billion of diamond revenue from Marange diamond operations has been lost. In the same statement he quantified that the government might have received less than 2 billion in diamond revenues since the onset of formal diamond mining in 2009.

In his statement he stated “…our people who we expected to be our eyes and ears have not been able to see or hear what was going on and lots of swindling, smuggling have taken place and companies that have been mining…I want to say robbed us of our wealth and that is why we have decided that this area should be the monopoly area and only the state should be able to do the mining in the area”.

The statement by the President came on the back of the declaratory order by the Minister of Mines and Mining Development that diamond-mining companies should stop operations forthwith due to their resistance to government plans to merger all the companies into one entity, the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company.  

The President’s statement is particularly concerning given that the government has at least a 50% stake in all the 6 joint ventures that were operating in the diamond fields. When the biggest shareholder complaints about corruption, lack of accountability and leakages of revenue meant for government it is very unsettling.

The EITI global conference is arguably the biggest conference where issues of transparency and accountability in the extractive sector are discussed. Despite the challenges of secrecy in Zimbabwe’s extractive sector, government and industry representatives were conspicuous by their absence.

The absence of these two key stakeholders was also witnessed during the 2015 UN Forum on Business and Human Rights, a forum that is hosted annually to reflect on the UN guiding principles on Business and Human Rights. Both platforms are key in that they promote tri-focal discussions among civil society, industry and the government on extractives.

The Zimbabwean government seems to be conveying the sentiment that such platforms yield no meaningful results overlooking how there is immense benefit from learning and sharing with others that are in the same situation or adopting and domesticating experiences of others that have gone through the same experiences. The dismissal of these initiatives despite the evidence of them enhancing mineral resource governance in many countries may result in the country failing to benefit from its resource endowment.

The EITI is an international standard for transparency in extractive industry. In countries participating in the EITI, companies are required to publish what they pay to governments and governments are required to publish what they receive from companies. Would Zimbabwe be in its current deplorable situation if EITI principles were being implemented in country?

The 2016 EITI conference, which ran under the theme “From Reports to Results” focused on how the progress registered in publishing EITI reports now needs to be elevated to ensure there are more results and actual reforms in the EITI implementing countries. Currently there are 51 implementing countries and among these 31 are compliant with EITI requirements. For both the EITI candidate and compliant countries, almost half (23) are from Africa. 

In Zimbabwe, the challenges of opacity in the extractive sector, particularly in diamond mining, have come to a head at a time when there has been a continued decline of international mineral commodity prices, a review of indigenization guidelines and proposals for a new mines law. All these are factors that make it imperative for the government to set a new path. During “booms” like we anticipated in Zimbabwe post the diamond rush of 2009 and the subsequent assurance by government of windfall revenue, so much was at stake and we too detail for grunted that it became difficult to rationally consider transparency and accountability.

Nevertheless, the fall of diamond prices and the reported depletion of alluvial diamond reserves, presents Zimbabwe with a unique opportunity to take time to pause, reflect and structure the industry in the best way possible given that the country has so many best practices to learn from to improve mineral resources management. To chart a new course, the government has to be open to ideas and shun the thinking that solutions of choice are always those that reject international best practice. There has to be recognition that mineral resource governance has to tap into the collective wisdom of Zimbabweans and the global citizenry.

Contrary to some positions that have been shared before, the EITI has 3 key processes that allows the government to still maintain self determination within the framework:

Firstly, a national multi-stakeholder group (government, industry and civil society) decides how their EITI process should work.

This presents room for independence to tailor make an initiative that is contextual to match the country’s aspirations. Having the three stakeholders engage is important in creating a shared understanding of the Extractive Industry sector. This ensures that expectations are managed and sets a basis for accountability.

Secondly, Government revenue and company payments are disclosed together with other information about the extractive sector.

The importance of this process for Zimbabwe cannot be overemphasized. The country needs to know the revenue mining companies are paying to government as well as any other information on the sector. Otherwise if government is not willing to disclose the revenue they are receiving from mining then the question is; who is benefiting from this secrecy?

Zimbabwe, like many African countries, needs to play catch up on development and one of the obvious routes is the exploitation of mineral resources and judicious use of mineral revenues for broad based sustainable development. Transparency and accountability is critical in ensuring that the contradiction between rich mineral resources and continued poverty-what most call the resource case, is addressed.

It is important to note that information that should be disclosed should cover the whole value chain of mining, which includes contacts and licenses, production, revenue collection, and social and economic contribution of the sector.

Thirdly, the findings are communicated to create public awareness and debate about how the country should manage its resources.

Progress and development is nested in a country’s ability to promote multi-stakeholder engagement, public debate and the flourishing of ideas. There is a need to break with the culture that government leaders have a monopoly on ideas.

In Zimbabwe a version of EITI was once set up in 2011 under the name the Zimbabwe Revenue Transparency Initiative (ZMRTI). This points to a general consensus on the benefits that such initiatives can offer to a resource rich country like Zimbabwe.

The ZMRTI comprised three stakeholders, including the government (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Mines, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe), mining companies (ZMDC, MMCZ and the Chambers of Mines) and civil society (Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association and Chiadzwa Community Development Trust and universities). Since inception the government noted that there were two major challenges to overcome – the mistrust between government and civil society, and the lack of financial resources.

Although ZMRTI was a promising initiative towards EITI, it suffered a stillbirth. The current situation requires that the Minister of Finance urgently take lead in resuscitating this initiative as has been promised in at least the last 3 National Budget Statements.

Good governance can lead to trust when there is participation of all stakeholders and this is more important in the extractive industry. There should be a common platform to share, review and learn from each other and the EITI offers a multi-stakeholder engagement platform for government, business and the civil society. Such tripartite engagements are not new and their results are known with the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (KPCS). The Kimberly Process (KP) is a joint governments, industry and civil society initiative to stem the flow of conflict diamonds-rough diamonds used by rebel movements to finance wars against legitimate governments

Natural resources are owned by the people of a country and managed through the custodianship of the government. Business on the other hand make investments to exploit these natural resources not to be owners but rather to make profit which should also cascade down to ensure that it changes the lives of the community as well as provide revenue that can be used by governments to support development.

The African Mining Vision states that the key element in determining whether or not a resource endowment will be a curse or blessing, is the level of governance capacity and the existence of robust institutions.  It goes on to argue that some elements critical for consideration include new global resource and resource rent monitoring systems such as the EITI and Kimberley Process.

In its wisdom, the AMV also acknowledges that it is clear that there is no “one size fits all” strategy for strengthening African resource governance and institutions. Nonetheless, there are a few broadly applicable strategies such as accession to international protocols (e.g. African Peer Review Mechanism, EITI) and the establishment of critical institutions to facilitate the optimal exploitation of natural resources. 

That African governments are sceptical to EITI is not a secret, but ever since embracing EITI some of the African countries have seen immense benefits. For Nigeria the EITI process has exposed outstanding debts by the national oil company to the Federal Government, recovered uncollected taxes, identified weaknesses in the regulatory bodies, audited oil-related transfers to subnational government, estimated oil theft, and examined oil sales. Whilst in Ghana the EITI has led to improvements in tracking the use of revenue on the local level. These are just but two examples that can demonstrate for Zimbabwe the potential of EITI in addressing a scenario such as the ‘loss’ of 15 billion.  

The High Level Panel Report on Illicit Financial Flows, which was led by former South African president Thabo Mbeki, identified the EITI as an important part of international architecture designed to tackle illicit financial flows of resources from the African continent. The same report comments that in some African countries the institutional architecture for responding to IFFs was at best uneven or, as in several key instances, non-existent. Lack of transparency, secrecy and the difficulty of obtaining information and systematic data remain key challenges across the board and Zimbabwe is not spared.

Zimbabwe’s economic blueprint, the Zimbabwe Agenda for Socio-Economic Transformation (ZIMASET) states that the mining sector continues to be a major foreign currency earner and has potential to become the pillar for economic growth through value addition and beneficiation. However, the sector continues to be constrained by energy and transport infrastructure challenges, depressed international mineral prices and shortage of utilities among other factors and (I will add) Transparency and Accountability.

That Zimbabwe should consider EITI is inherent for countries that choose mining to be the central nerve to the economy. The Mbeki High Level report on Illicit Financial flows notes that reliance on extractive industries for revenue and export earnings in Africa usually means that the sector has a high degree of discretionary power and political influence. This is the source of the secret and unequal contracts that African countries sometimes enter into with multinational mining companies. These contracts in turn undermine efforts to promote transparency and accountability in the extractives industry but with EITI all stakeholders will become involved.  

In conclusion it is important to restate the late Justice Louis D. Brandeis of the United States’ words that “sunlight is the best disinfectant”, Zimbabwe more than ever needs to shine the light on the mining sector and one possible path to follow is the EITI.

From the lessons learnt from countries implementing EITI to the strong recommendations in documents such as the AMV, the high level panel on illicit financial flows and the shortcomings of the current mining regime, all seem to point to the need for Zimbabwe to consider implementing the EITI.

21st Afri-CAN leadership demands

The 21st Century presents a good opportunity for leadership emergence in Africa.

Simply put, the continents' problems are it's very opportunities if a transformational and adaptive leadership emerges, such a leadership should be anchored on achieving the common goals of its society.

Africa's resources, the unprecedented youth bulge, growth projections, penetration of new ICTs and our increased awareness of the importance of indigenous knowledge are all indications of how the continent can take strides in this century and possible become the leader in growth and development.

Repositioning Africa demands for continuous leadership emergence, inter-generational dialogue and critical thinking on how existing challenges can be transformed into opportunities.

The obtaining challenges require the leadership's ability to utilize wisdom of the majority rather than the intelligence of the minority. Something that questions the fundamentals of our perception and practice of democracy. We need to make democracy work for African!

Although the existing model of representative democracy (with its foreign roots) is premised to promote the rule of the majority, for Africa it seems to perpetuate dictatorship of a minority by creating an elite ruling class that detaches itself from the rest of its people the moment that it gets elected into power.

Beyond elections, we need to develop leaders and systems that promote participatory democracy where there is collective visioning and dialogue on what Africa needs and the architecture of how to get there.

It is time we focus on creating leadership at multiple levels, something that we have already identified in African wisdom as captured in our thinking that "one finger can't crush lice".

 A leader no matter how great, cannot single handedly change situations and as such we need a slight departure from the thinking of the "great leader", "the mwalimu", "the father" or the "wise old leader".

Another critical challenge for the continent's leadership is how to create effective succession processes in our leadership. The dynamism of the world around us require that opportunities for the emergence of leaders be deliberately created.

We also need to rethink how we see conflict we need to depart from the current thinking were difference mean "bad or worse than" towards seeing diversity as our strongest characteristics that can enhance our collective creativity.

All these considerations will amount to nothing as long as we continue to perceive leadership as something about "them". More often than not we are critical of political leaders and we criticize them for all sorts of bad leadership tendencies without taking time to look into ourselves for a minute.

During the Leadership and Society training by the African Leadership Centre in collaboration with OSISA, one thing came out strongly that leadership start with us (you dear reader and me).

Africa needs a new generation of leaders who focuses more on making influence rather than earn a position of authority.

The power of this new generation of leaders is not positional power but rather it is the power to influence from where ever they are in whatever capacity they find themselves. 

Our Naked Society

We have lost our social cohesion as a society.

Our collective history has failed to mold us into a society anchored on genuine unity and positive peace.

When I grew up, our fathers (in their wisdom) used to run their own burial "societies" which have now been replaced by the modern day funeral services.

With modernity we have lost the communal responsibility of mourning with each other.

These days a proper funeral is only possible when one has a funeral policy, even in people's last moments- the transactional demeanor is more important than the relational responsibility.

Back in the days, our mothers used to have a simple mechanism for collective saving they called "round". The idea of rounds was enhanced to joint priority setting and assistance of each other in time of need in what they also called "societies".

As young men we would play football in community teams, had study groups where we would effectively utilise the thin collection of books among ourselves or share books we would have borrowed from the library.

During our high school days, we started  a group and named it "Troika". We would sit by the corner drainage at sunset to comment on social issues, advice each other and through satire challenge bad behaviour.

It is through discussions in Troika meetings that I picked some early lessons about adulthood. It was a space for sharing our individual plight with people of similar problems and aspirations. Back then there was always a society around me.  

In those subtle ways we had good models of social cohesion, where anybody's business was everyone's business.

It is back in those days when a  funeral would mean life stops for the whole neighborhood  We would not even switch on the radio and play loud music in our cars passing bye as we do these days.

Romanticising with the past does not in any way suggest that we had to be stagnant with our social development. Instead we should have taken the multiple lessons from these rich networks and seriously maintain our social cohesion.

In my own view, we have lost what we had back then because of two main reasons:

Firstly, party politics has divided us in bigger ways than what meets the eye.

The trust we bestow in our politicians to effectively represent our collective interests has continuously been betrayed.

Periods of political violence have caused negative peace in us. We see the absence of violence and think that we are enjoying peace when deep down we seethe with anger from unresolved conflicts. The one who perpetrated violence and the one who was a victim both pretend to be at peace with each other whilst both have wounds to bear-visible or not.

Sadly, in political contestations our voice has been taken away. A simple gathering like our "Troika" to discuss social issues or otherwise has been criminalised.

Independent thought or seeing things slightly different has been simplified to mean dissent. We have been schooled to think different mean bad or not good enough.      

Politics has left us convinced that there are people better than all of us whose only qualification is being "liked" by more people and being brave to stand in the rough terrain called politics.

Politics has worsened the divide, it's now more of an anointing or simply is it about economic clout and the need to be better than the rest of men.

Politics has also taken everything from power, decision making, livelihood from the micro level (from you and me) to the macro level (to them).

My second reason to explain why we no longer have social cohesion is nothing more than poverty with its twin cousins of disease and crime.

Now more than ever, our society is worried of the economic value of any action and decision. Social investments are no longer part of our priorities because of poverty or the fear of it.

We have slowly been mutating and now what matters more than anything is our selfish interests and never the collective.

We muscle out each other, out-compete and outwit to gain access to resources, gain the loudest voice and drive the most expensive cars.

Digressing a bit about cars, it is interesting to have a very big population of people driving those big trucks with 3litre engines to work- and work is an office in town or a suburb near town- isn't there something wrong there?

Our fear of taking responsibility of each other's welfare is much rooted in our insecurity. We feel that there is just not enough. It is our fear of poverty that has taught us that social cohesion threatens abundance.

Although we pride ourselves of being a Christian country, we have desisted from one fundamental of Christianity that of loving one another as Christ loved us.

We used to be a community that would help each other but now we cannot hesitate to tramp on each other to achieve our own personal goals.

Our hope lies in recreating the cohesion we once had.                                     

I am not sure whether the new networks that are cyber based will manage to stomach the increasing need for us to be stronger together again, I am not convinced that our politicians will take up the moral obligation of genuinely unifying us again, I am hoping that we become secure enough to stop worrying about the immediate self but start thinking of our common good. 

Have we benefited from youth participation?

My reflections on International youth day.

The International youth day is significant especially now when young people constitute 40% of the 7 billion global population.

Besides their numbers, youth constitute the economic active age group, emerging leadership, the today compliant - simply what others have termed the window of hope.

In countries like Zimbabwe, there is an unprecedented growth of the youth population (15-35 years), causing a "youth bulge" that communities, governments, the civil society and business sector has to comprehend.

Depending on the policies, strategies and systems that are developed to carter for this youth population, countries can either benefit or become more insecure depending on how they deliver to the demands of young people.

Given the global attention on promoting youth participation, harnessing the youth as agents of development and catalysts of sustainable societies remains an illusion.

Although global calls have been made to proclaim "decade of the youth", "year of the youth" and other internationally negotiated documents, the real aggregates of this focus are minimal.

The agenda of youth participation has resulted in a counterproductive culture were systems, regimes or structures have been created to either "feed" young people or "feed on" the young people.

There is an obvious divide of young people that have been "fed" by the status quo and those that have been "fed on".

The justified call for youth participation has created youth "activists" that have become an extension of systems, structures and regimes.

These young people participate in conferences, receive capacity building to the extent of saturation, have access to empowerment resources which they normally abuse as representatives of institutions and interests, they spend much of their time at airports than in communities they supposedly represent.

This group of young people has provided the status quo with a convenient justification that "look there are young people taking part in processes and being consulted".  They symbolise youth participation although most of their sentiments, issues and representation are not rooted in the organic affairs of "real" young people that you would find in communities.

Given that exposure, capacity building and opportunity has crafted in them an art of articulating issues, they dominate public forums and make proclamations of issues that either lack common appeal to young people or have been recycled to the extent of redundancy.

Especially now with the world of social media, there is a mediated reality that is foreign to the bigger population of young people and their discourse lack the ingenuity of real youth or is too emotive towards self gratification rather than common good to young people who are faced with high unemployment, high disease burden, a crippled education systems and political repression.

The youth movement has become a commodity for a minority youth that either have developed the tact of making convenient demands that scatter on real issues or those that can make case on how they can best represent the concerns and aspirations of young people.

The sad reality is that such platforms for articulating the plight of young people are important but unfortunately have been subject to abuse by those that have come to know the rewards of the development sector (perdiums, flights, five star hotels and visibility).

A lot of these proclaimed activists do not find time to interact with young people at the grassroots level, they increasingly distance themselves from the real young people through the convenient excuse of operating at higher levels.

The development architecture has robbed the need for a strong work ethic in these young people who no longer desire to work harder because their time is spent participating or seeking to participate in the lucrative forums.

Hope for the youth movement to become stronger is increasingly becoming difficult to foresee. Benefits from youth participation have been welcomed by those that access shifting attention from issues.

The other group of young people that has been created by the systems, structures and regimes is that which the status quo "feeds on".

This group of young people are the ones whose challenges are articulated in proposals, they are the helpless lot that need aid, support and the mercy of development, they are the "voiceless" who needs advocates and activists to speak on their behalf, they are the gullible who for a T-shirt would pose for a photo for the donor, instigate violence or consider themselves as lucky than the other.

This group of young people are the reason for aid and support not only for their direct benefit but rather for all those that are part of the supply chain. They are part of the approximately 238 million youth who live in extreme poverty of less than $1 a day; they are also the 11.8 million young people who are living with HIV or AIDS, they are the 300,000 child soldiers around the world.

They are the raw materials to the development agenda and they are the blood line to the call for participation.

Although it is their plight that we wish to address, they are marginalised from the public sphere because of real and created "barriers" of language, technology or simply clarity.

The real issue for now is how do we bridge the gap between these two distinct groups of young people especially given the corrupting tendency of the carrot dangled and the obvious stick that cautions those with access to resources to know the potential relapse into abject poverty.

The calls for youth participation have not been anchored on a sustainable model but rather they have ingeniously been created to continue serve the interests of those we sought to question. Participation is convenient and attractive but does not address the multi-faceted challenges youth face.

The youth movement has to take lessons from the women's movement that it is not participation they should celebrate but rather it is power that they should hope to negotiate.

Youth should find themselves in real positions were they are not only limited to influence an agenda but shape the direction and outcomes of development.

The Youth need to reorganise themselves for the common purpose of creating collective power based on their numbers, ideas and influence as the game changers of any future.

They need to increasingly recognise that they can also create so much power by being local but global citizens who learn from one another, create coalitions and identify how issues can be connected as dots of a common thread. 

A touch is a move, or is it?

Growing up we used to play a game called "draft" which was the closest substitute to the then elitist chess.

One of the golden rules of that game was that  “touch is a move”. This principle was adopted to ensure fairness. Each player was allowed to one move at a turn after calculating all possible scenarios. These preconditions meant each move had to be preceded by a clear understanding of implications towards winning or losing the game.

The rule was also punishment to those that misjudge and miscalculate their moves. Another rule was that if one plays wrongly their opponent will have an opportunity to punish them and have an extra chance to play, a scornful "good move".

Looking at the political dispensation today I am wondering whether the touch is a move applies especially now when everyone is either doubtful or convinced of the MDC's move of wanting to disengage from government after participating in the harmonised elections which they lost- rigged or otherwise.

The MDC has made an official announcement that they are regarding the recently held election as null and void- meaning their touch was not a move.

Going by what is circulating, news or opinions, it appears that the MDC had prior intelligence that the election was not going to be free and fair but they still went on to participate.

What then baffles anyone who cares to think differently is why did MDC participate convinced that it was going to be rigged- why make a touch and then decide not to move?

Maybe they considered a counter premise that one cannot judge the fairness of a fight without getting into the ring to fight it out. If so what gains then come from one getting into a ring with a monster fully aware that it would eat them up without even standing a chance?

Would it have been naivety on the part of the MDC that they thought ZANU PF wouldn't turn up to be the monster that they feared it to be all these years given the "intimate" relationship they had within the inclusive government?

Is it not wishful thinking that ZANU PF would at this 9th hour of their life (as symbolised by their candidate), participate in an election in which they knew would not usher victory?

The MDC should have known the opponent that they were dealing with- I think they did but the bravado of pending victory blinded them to think strategically.

The years of working together with ZANU PF should have taught them something- the COPAC experience, the outstanding reforms, the disregard of the office of prime minister, the constitutional court, the ZEC...are all pointers to what ZANU PF is capable of doing.

Or was it an issue of confidence that most people where fully behind them because they give all credit of the stability we enjoyed to MDC and rationally they will "vote for more".

The MDC has been a fierce opponent to ZANU for the last decade and it knows more than anyone that ZANU PF can adopt, create or reinvent any strategy necessary to win an election and gain "legitimacy" to rule.

You could sense it by the silence that befell the announcements of the election results that the country was mourning but unfortunately the collective emotions alone will not change the principle of a touch is a move.

MDC had an opportunity to play the offensive, they were right to demand for the voters roll before elections, they were tactful to demand reforms before the elections and they made sense to request extension of voter registration and postponement of the election. Unfortunately they still fell to the trappings- they made the touch and move.

Some feel that it was difficult to withdraw from the election given that people wanted to strongly participate and dislodge the regime.

It's fair to think so but then the dictates of strategic leadership demands that one thinks beyond the seemingly obvious.

MDC had an opportunity to sway public opinion and influence everyone to understand that they were not going to win this election under the prevailing conditions (isn't this what they are currently doing albeit a little too late-for a touch is a move).

If you ask me, people were prepared to have a prolonged inclusive government than to out rightly give power to ZANU PF as what happened in this harmonised election.

MDC had to cast its eye in the view mirror and remember how in 2008 they were supposed to assume power only to be matched by an unwanted but violent regime that changed a peaceful environment in March into an anarchy by June of the same year, all in the name of gaining political power.

We can mistake ZANU PF for anything else but not for its style of leading by polls. They will play to the gallery on anything else not elections and winning political power. Let's remember that in each passing year these guys would claim that they will go for elections even when all other indications showed otherwise- simply they had to make sure their structures remained active for the obvious.

It appears that in the false luxury of the inclusive government the MDC snoozed and forgot that there will come a time that they were supposed to make a move and that a wrong move would change fortunes.

Now can  we say a touch is not a move when SADC and the region is endorsing this election, when all we can gather as evidence is almost subjective now in retrospect, when on election day we were bubbling of an eminent victory?

As painful as it is, we have touched  and now is time to prepare ourselves into life after ZANU PF's "punishment plus good move".

Gains have been sold cheap by participating in a flawed process especially if we continue to pin our arguments on "we knew this and that" for if we knew why did we make the touch and then decide it's not a move when we should know "a touch is a move!". 

Questioning the concept of Democracy in Africa

It is critical to analyze how democracy fits well in African systems of governance so that we create a hybrid that functions better in our context.

One thing is for sure that democracy as we have perceived it in Africa is “dictatorship of the majority” overshadowing the views and needs of the minority.

This is why we are preoccupied with elections so that we know who is supported by the majority and thereafter they become dictators through maintaining the “winner takes it all type of government” which further enacts restrictive laws that promotes alienation of the minority.

Democracy as it stands has the potential of causing divisions, conflicts and polarity over issues and within the context of Africa this becomes the route of so many challenges that we face.

The minority in most cases are those that have less economic clout and political influence to sway opinion towards their favor- at times the very common people in the country.

Democracy has become a system that gives legitimacy to taking sides rather than allowing our leaders to take both sides and put them together.

What then Africa might need is strategic leadership rather than Democracy for such leadership has the ability to be inclusive in its decision making to ensure that there is no divide in society between the majority and the minority for all opinions matter if society is to become progressive.

See more on this space…

Consideration as we call for Zeros

1 February 2012

By Darlington Muyambwa

Another year and yet again another World AIDS Day came and went. As we continue to remember those whose lives were cut short by AIDS, let’s take stock of our collective achievements towards universal access to treatment and urge rights holders to put their money where their words are-on the zeroes.

More than three decades into the epidemic, 2011 held so much promise and for the first time, an AIDS free generation seems realistic come 2012 and beyond.

While the target of Zero HIV infections, Zero AIDS related deaths and Zero Discrimination epitomizes the dream of an AIDS free generation, the effort required has to transcend rhetoric.

The three zero vision is more significant for resource constrained but high burden countries like Zimbabwe. Such countries need to consider the fact that as the epidemic is evolving, responses have to do the same and they need not to take the business as usual approach.

While announcing multiple response positives, UNAIDS also offered a warning that funding for the response is dwindling.  In the context of reduced resources, there is evident contestation for space and relevance amongst organisation whilst at population level sexual risk taking remains prevalent- a recipe that contradicts the Zero vision.

The most distinct aspect of the three Zero vision is the collectivity it conjures. However, Zimbabwe’s response faces a potentially divisive moral dilemma which took root in policy and programming debates throughout 2011.

The debate around the feasibility of providing condom education, demonstration and distribution has divided opinion and generated debate only rivaled by political discourse. At its core is a moral argument versus the practical need to provide access to prevention information and commodities.

Although the debate has receded, it is by no means a sign that consensus was reached. Without taking a position, it is critical to outline that the debate has taken an overly moralistic tone to an extent of becoming almost political.

In a country where an estimated 93 percent of new infections arise out of unprotected sexual contact, is it not imperative to ensure access to prevention? Although prevention is wider than just condoms, condoms remain one of the practical commodities we need considering the sexual debut of the young people in today’s world.

From a prevention viewpoint, our concern should not be so much about who is having sex and at what age and whether they are in school or not. Our critical concern should be are they having safer sex and do we have programs, information, services and commodities that ensure their competency in practicing safer sex? If the above becomes the key consideration then our preoccupation should be on inculcating a culture of safer sex regardless of age gender or other determinants.

The debate has raised key questions around parenting, parent-child relations and multi influenced socialisation. However, not all of the multiple socializing factors provide accurate information and not all families have open relationships for young people to seek clarification. While experience used to be the best teacher, in the context of HIV it becomes the worst teacher with potential to destroy its students.

Although there can be no straight forward answer about how and when education of sexual and reproductive health should start, it is straightforward that families should redefine relations and take more responsibility for providing accurate information and guidance.

The other issue that has attained even more political significance is that of sexual minorities. Like the issue of condoms and youths, this has taken a moralistic and political turn to the extent of losing its significance.

Despite our moral inhibitions, sexual minorities exist and cannot be wished away by political statements.

Just as how we used to see HIV as something the “other” person had to worry about we still find ourselves not moved by men who have sex with men, sex workers or people with disabilities when it comes to designing effective prevention programs.

Even though we differ on principles and morals around certain practices and orientations it is now our obligation to be as inclusive as possible so that we strive for Zero. To get to Zero we cannot afford to exclude any section of our society simply because of our moral differences.

To get to Zero we need to do more on services and commodities to ensure that there is provision of services for the whole continuum of sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Although we have significantly done well in our PMTCT interventions there still remain structural challenges at service delivery point that makes it difficult for one to access a service as simple as testing and counseling-Experts might deny this but the general population may agree.

We need to be more vigilant and open minded in our approach to the epidemic. Realities have transformed, unlike what we used to be told as children that “AIDS Kills” it is not killing anymore but rather it can be prevented, treated and managed. Decades into the epidemic we have seen that fear does not work but instead we need to think of better ways of transforming behaviors.

To get to Zero as a country we need to first thrive for a single digit, we urgently need to improve our services and ensure that we become more receptive, we need to be more resourceful and accountable, we need (more than ever) to use all resources we have differently and more effectively.