Local Government Public Works and National Housing through its Department of Civil Protection; Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare; and small and medium enterprises and cooperative development. Community-level engagement also includes Ministry for Youth, Development, Indigenization and Empowerment, and the Ministry of Women Affairs and Gender and Community Development. UNDP, through its Support for Strengthening National Capacity for Disaster Management programme, carried out between 2005 and 2009, assisted the national government by strengthening its Department of Civil Protection, which has direct responsibility for natural disaster prevention and response. As noted in the country context section to this evaluation (2.1), Zimbabwe remains one of the most landmine-impacted countries in the world, with nearly 2 million landmines still in place along the northern and eastern borders of the country, a dangerous legacy of the liberation war of the 1970s. Despite its very active engagement in mine action in the region (Mozambique and Angola in particular), UNDP has been a very minor actor in the effort to remove landmines in Zimbabwe. UNDP provided $150,000 in support of the Zimbabwe Mine Action Centre (ZIMAC) in 2008. FOOD SECURITY UNDP demonstrated through the coping with drought project that it could pilot useful multi-faceted initiatives to help the government prepare for and adapt to economic and climate-related shocks. UNDP intends to build on this work during the next cycle by establishing a Resilience Building Fund, to support: a) building a base of evidence for policymaking on resilience; b) setting up a multi-donor trust for resilience building in Zimbabwe to help improve the absorptive, adaptive and transformative capacities of at-risk communities; and c) setting up a risk financing mechanism to rapidly respond to food and nutrition security shocks. 44
The concept recognizes the important linkages between the critical food security issues facing Zimbabwe, and the unfolding impacts of climate change. The programme builds on a logic that in order to achieve income, food and nutrition security, in addition to boosting agricultural output, Zimbabwean communities must create more diverse, adaptive and stable means of livelihood to increase resilience from external and internal shocks such as natural hazards. RELEVANCE The various resilience-related efforts of UNDP, set across these three focal areas, are relevant to the challenges facing Zimbabwe. They mesh with the government’s strategic goals (as set out in the MTP and ZimAsset), fit well within the country team support frame (ZUNDAF) and are consistent with the UNDP strategic plan. Building resilience to economic, social and climate-related shocks is crucial for Zimbabwe. Efforts in the previous cycle to focus specific attention on early recovery were appropriate in the midst of the economic and humanitarian crisis the country was facing. The timeliness and level of engagement for UNDPs work in peacebuilding and conflict resolution built on UNDPs convening capacity and neutral position, its contribution was significant and its performance was appreciated by national partners. Under the circumstances at the time, UNDP was uniquely placed to provide this support in Zimbabwe. With the 2013 Constitution and elections, Zimbabwe has moved on to a‘ post-conflict’ phase, and UNDPs future programming should evolve accordingly, especially in the area of improved local government services and expanded job creation. EFFECTIVENESS The Support to the Dialogue Financing Facility had a high rate of implementation in meeting targets, including 34,000 persons receiving basic conflict transformation skills, trained from 303 community peace and dialogue facilitators. CHAPTER 5. CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES