The New York-based Council for Zimbabwe said the proposed Diaspora Development Fund would be one if the ways in which Zimbabweans based abroad could take practical steps to jump-start the social and economic revival of their homeland.
Politics alone will not end Zimbabwes current crisis…We are developing a Diaspora Development Fund to help schools, hospitals and small businesses, the council said this week.
It said the fund would also act as a mechanism to ensure that professionals could contribute their skills to revive Zimbabwe in an organised and effective manner.
News of the planned fund came just over a month after researchers at the University of Manchesters Brook World Poverty Institute in the UK proposed a controversial nationality tax. This would be levied by the Harare government on Zimbabweans based in the diaspora in exchange for retaining their citizenship.
The researchers said Harare should come up with various confidence-boosting measures to entice citizens living abroad.
These measures could include allowing dual nationality, restoring voting rights of migrants who hold Zimbabwean citizenship and creating mechanisms and platforms for them to be heard.
The plan would also see the more than three million disenfranchised Zimbabweans living in the diaspora having their voting rights restored to enable them to participate in the countrys socio-political development.
About a quarter of Zimbabwes 12 million people have left the country since 2000 to escape economic hardships and political repression.
President Robert Mugabes government had in previous elections denied the exiles most of whom are believed to support the Movement for Democratic Change the opportunity to vote, saying the country did not have the resources to enable all Zimbabweans spread across the globe to vote.
Only Zimbabweans posted abroad on government duty have been able to vote by post in previous elections.
The mass exodus of professionals and skilled people has left the country with a dearth of doctors, nurses, teachers, university lecturers, engineers, surveyors, vets and scientists.
The Council for Zimbabwe hosted a lecture in New York this week, at which the education minister, David Coltart, discussed the challenges faced by the coalition government in reviving the education sector.
Post published in: World News