Fishmongers urged to maintain aid

The group that is also known as the Fishmongers Group – after the restaurant in Harare where they first met to discuss aid to Zimbabwe plans to increase support to the country to as much as US$1.5 billion a year. But they will only loosen the purse strings once their demands for more democratic reforms, respect for human rights and a return to rule of law are met.

Countries in the Fishmongers group are Britain, United States, Japan, Germany, France, Sweden, Holland, Norway, Canada and Australia

In an address to the Fishmongers, Tor-Hugne Olsen — who is co-coordinator of the Zimbabwe Europe Network (ZEN) of civic groups working in or on Zimbabwe urged donor countries to maintain humanitarian support, especially to key sectors such as health and education,

Such support should be given directly to beneficiaries or through non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or multilateral agencies, he said. ?

Olsen told the donors that there was also critical need to strengthen support to civil society groups, particularly those that provide monitoring of the inclusive government and those that work in areas of human rights and governance.

Donors were urged to continue offering support in areas that would strengthen the transition towards a new Zimbabwe including to organisations campaigning for security sector reform, transitional justice and healing — key areas where Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) party have fiercely opposed reform.

The Fishmongers were urged to support an independent audit of Zimbabwes external debt. Zimbabwe owes in excess of US$5 billion external to foreign funders but it is not clear whether all the funds borrowed by Mugabes previous administration benefited the country.

The ZEN coordinator urged Western governments to maintain travel bans on individuals responsible for human rights violations and other targeted measures on Zimbabwe until Mugabe acted to fully implement the global political agreement (GPA) that gave birth to the unity government.