Zimbabwe Europe Network presents recommendations to the ‘Friends of Zimbabwe’ donor meeting in Copenhagen.

On Friday December 10 the Friends of Zimbabwe held a donor meeting in Copenhagen, discussing their strategy in Zimbabwe. Ahead of this meeting the Zimbabwe Europe Network held its AGM and came with a set of recommendations to the Friends of Zimbabwe donor countries.

1. Continue and increase support to the people of Zimbabwe, maintaining high levels of humanitarian aid and support for social sectors. Donor aid should be transparent in the nature and extent of engagement with Government and civil society. Donors should strengthen the social component of aid to ensure participation of the poorest sectors of the population;

2. Provide long term, predictable funding to civil society organisations;

3. Focus support on human rights and governance, including for monitoring the inclusive government and greater transparency in the extractive industries. ZEN also urges quick and enhanced support for civic society efforts in countermanding fear, and mitigating and exposing violence;

4. Strengthen support for the transition towards a new Zimbabwe, including working for legislative and institutional reform, especially security sector reform, transitional justice and healing;

5. Support the election preparations in the country to ensure elections are free from violence, intimidation and manipulation, and are carried out in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) electoral principles and guidelines;

6. Ensure the access in Zimbabwe to the widest variety of media information, including support for externally-based media outlets;

7. Support a moratorium on debt repayments to allow an independent and transparent debt audit;

8. Support a land ownership audit;

9. Support work on transparency in extraction and use of diamond revenue in Marange, to enable the country to meet international standards. Support the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme local focal point and encourage Zimbabwe to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative;

10. Continue the appropriate and targeted measures, including the travel bans on individuals responsible for human rights violations, until the GPA obligations are fulfilled;

11. Continue to press and support SADC and the African Union, including using the EU-AU human rights dialogue, to fulfil their role as guarantors of the GPA.

Read the full briefing report on the website of the Zimbabwe Europe Network.