CHINAMASA DOUBLES SPENDING FOR ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE:
FINANCE Minister Patrick Chinamasa has doubled public spending for the environment, water and climate sectors, in a key move aimed at tackling the expanding, dangerous impacts of climate change.
THE Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate will next year spend 114 percent more than it did this year, Mr Chinamasa said in the 2018 Budget Statement, after seeing a series of devastating extreme events that until this year’s bumper harvest, had cut food production badly.
More than $85 million has been allocated for the three sectors next year, up from $40 million in 2017, he said.
Since 2012, Mr Chinamasa has progressively cut spending across most line ministries, as public coffers ran dry.
The environment and climate portfolio has suffered some of the deepest cuts.
As a percentage of total Government expenditure, spending for the portfolio has consistently declined, falling one percent this year from 2,5 percent in 2012.
However, for 2018, the figure rises to 1,5 percent.
New path
This is President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s first Budget as leader of Zimbabwe.
Well, it was presented by his Finance Minister, but the success or failure of the economic policies enunciated therein will be credited to the President.
So, in that sense, the increased spending for a Government portfolio that only a few weeks ago had been split at the altar of political expediency is particularly encouraging.
It potentially reflects the direction that Zimbabwe, under President Mnangagwa, is likely to follow in the wide-ranging issues concerning environment - a path of change, as well rapid implementation of programmes that help people cope with climate change, arguably one of the greatest threats faced by mankind today.
His predecessor, Robert Mugabe, had already laid a solid foundation for this change to happen.
Though Mugabe didn’t go far enough on execution, his administration signed Zimbabwe onto important global eco-related treaties, and at home crafting one of the most comprehensive legal frameworks on environment anywhere on the African continent.
In the Budget, Mr Chinamasa did not speak about the financial risk arising from climate change - we would have loved that he addressed this critical matter - but the fact that he recognises the problems brought on by the phenomenon is good enough, for now.
We would like that financial risks caused by climate change be included in future economic projections, either by Mr Chinamasa, or anyone else, in light of the over $500 million damage-worth to public infrastructure caused by a succession of tropical cyclones last summer, and the years before.
This will be important in understanding the financial cost of extreme events, and perhaps environmental degradation, on the fiscus.
The Finance Minister spoke about strengthening Zimbabwe’s response systems to climate impacts, which have manifested “through frequent recurrence of heat waves, droughts and floods leading to . . . poor yields and food insecurity at both the household and national levels.”
He is concerned at the scale of damage climate change could inflict on the broader economy if left unchecked.
Thus, he outlined four points that he believes will be key to helping people and the economy adapt to climate change:
Scaling up adaptation capacity and strategies to build community resilience;
Strengthening early warning systems to reduce incidences of climate related disasters and loss and damage to human life, biodiversity, infrastructure, property and economic losses;
Strengthening the institutional framework for climate change governance; and
Enhancing the capacity of stakeholders to mainstream climate change in local development frameworks.
As they are, these interventions represent nothing that is not already known.
It is how Mr Chinamasa goes about implementing the plans he has lined up that concerns us.
Pragmatic
At the time of writing, we had yet managed to obtain specific data on how the $85 million allocated to the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate is to be distributed for all the departments falling under it.
In his Budget Statement, Mr Chinamasa touched on a range of issues related to the environment, from forestry to wildlife, irrigation to energy, and others.
Whereas in the past he tended to skirt around issues that would otherwise be damaging to the environment, this time round the Finance Minister demonstrated a certain pragmatism in driving the environmental agenda in line with the wider economic trajectory.
He threatened to punish invaders of land on animal sanctuaries, who go on to cut down trees senselessly.
“In order to restore our forestry resources, Government is moving in to bring a stop to this and, where necessary, reversals of some indiscriminate resettlements over both forestry and conservancies will be undertaken,” said Mr Chinamasa.
In agriculture, a key economic sector that is, nonetheless, most vulnerable to climate change, Mr Chinamasa promised to build more dams and refurbish old irrigation equipment. Water and irrigation access are seen as major interventions in climate change adaptation.
He read the riot act to corrupt officials from environment regulator the Environmental Management Agency, who, for the love of money, had been allegedly turning a blind eye to matters that are harmful to nature.
There are a number of things to take home from Mr Chinamasa’s Budget. We hope that where past promises haven’t been fulfilled, they would be this time round. God is faithful.