Zimbabwe to get USD115 million windfall from ZRBF

Over five million Zimbabweans across the country's 18 districts are beneficiary to a USD115 million windfall from the donor community under the Zimbabwe Resilience Building Fund (ZRBF), according to a news report by NewZimbabwe.com.

This was revealed Thursday by Swedish Embassy National Programme Officer for Environment, Climate Change, Resilience, and Renewable Energy in Harare, Gareth Horsfield.

In an interview, Horsfield said the program, bankrolled by various world donors, was aimed at empowering locals so as to build resilient communities in the face of climatic changes.

"ZRBF is the largest multi-donor trust fund in Zimbabwe, funded to the tune of USD115 million by Sweden, UNDP, DFID, the EU, and the Danish Government," Horsfield said.

Horsfield said that a prior hazard mapping of every ward in the country helped determine districts to prioritize.

The program has been running for five years now and is set to end in 2022.

There are hopes the program could continue if more funding was availed.

To date, Sweden has contributed SEK 120 million. SEK 15 million has been added recently to install and rehabilitate 532 boreholes across the 18 districts.

The aim is to provide clean water to approximately 160 000 households. In 2019, the embassy contributed humanitarian funding to the World Food Programme with the aim of specifically targeting ZRBF districts," he said.