Zimbabwe

Interagency Story

Combating Cholera in Zimbabwe Through Improved Water Quality

Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health and Child Care declared an outbreak of cholera in Harare, Zimbabwe, on September 5, 2018, when 25 patients were admitted to the Beatrice Road Infectious Disease Hospital. Over six months, the country recorded a total of 10,421 cases of cholera, of which 94 percent were from Harare, and 69 deaths. Cholera outbreaks are often linked to contaminated water supplies, including piped water systems, if water quality is not adequately maintained.  

Activity

Resilient Waters – Southern Africa

Southern Africa has significant biodiversity and natural resources, as well as a robust legal framework for natural resource management across borders. However, most countries in the region are water scarce or water stressed. National policies lack harmonization across countries and between sectors, and poor and vulnerable populations lack enough benefits and incentives for sustainable resource management.

Evaluation

Performance Evaluation of Water Interventions in Urban and Rural Areas of Zimbabwe

In response to Zimbabwe's critical health status and the degraded state of the country's water infrastructure, USAID's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) funded 12 projects related to the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Promotion (WASH) sector in schools, hospitals, and clinics across the country.  These water supply intervention activities began in fiscal year FY 2009 and continued through FY 2012 to determine whether they provided adequate access to improved water during the rainy and dry seasons.

Activity

Resilience in the Limpopo Basin Program

From June 2012 to December 2017, the USAID-funded Resilience in the Limpopo Basin Program (RESILIM) contributed to significant advances in water management, biodiversity, and climate change adaptation across an area of Southern Africa as large as Sweden that is home to 18 million people.

Report

USAID Annual Global Water and Development Report FY 2017

This year’s Global Water and Development Report of Water and Sanitation Activities examines USAID programming through the lens of its new areas of focus and opportunity, takes a closer look at USAID’s support for partner countries on their journeys to self-reliance, and provides a country breakdown of WASH and water funding.

Report

What Does Climate Change Mean for the Limpopo Basin?

The objective of the Resilience in the Limpopo Basin Program (RESILIM) of USAID Southern Africa is to enhance the resilience of people and ecosystems in the Limpopo Basin Program (LRB) by strengthening the capacity of the Limpopo Watercourse Commission (LIMCOM), and its key stakeholders, to address issues of climate change adaptation and biodiversity conservation within the context of trans-boundary integrated water resources management (IWRM).

Article

RESILIM: Addressing the Water Shortage Puzzle in Southern Africa

River basins in southern Africa, like river basins around the world, are under threat from increasing water use and shifting rainfall patterns, which are exaggerating flood and drought cycles and degrading water quality. It is hard enough for one country to adapt to these changing conditions, but most of the world’s water basins — 263 lake and river basins, covering almost half of the earth’s nonocean surface — cross national boundaries. To ensure that collaboration rather than competition wins out in basin management, neighboring countries need to work together.