Stakeholders have said the process of coming up with the City of Harare’s Environment and Climate Policy has been very inclusive in several respects.
This emerged last week at a multi-stakeholder dialogue forum that brought together representatives from the Government, Local Authorities within the Harare metropolitan area, the Private Sector, and Civil Society to present their policy proposals for the development of the City of Harare’s Environment and Climate Policy.
In his contribution, Evans Itayi from Dialogue on Shelter (DoS) said there is a need to desist from the continued sectoral approach on issues of the environment and climate.
“Stakeholders are discouraged from operating in silos. There is a need to effectively operationalise commitments across the City of Harare’s key departments. There is also a need to innovatively look at climate finance and start to look more internally at how funds can be mobilised to address climate adaptation gaps. As DoS, we anchored the consultation process to reach the hard-to-reach areas such as informal settlements,” Itayi said.
Precious Shumba, the Executive Director of Harare Residents Trust (HRT) said the consultative process of coming up with the policy was very inclusive in many respects.
“There has been participation in the process. There has been the involvement of key stakeholders. And I think that Mr. Chpfunde from the City of Harare and our colleagues from EMA have been influential in helping other stakeholders. This is a first for the City of Harare and we commend you for this effort. We look forward to more such engagements in policy formulation. I hope that we are going to establish a feedback mechanism where key stakeholders or representatives can meet probably at the Town House to review progress made once the policy has been implemented. However, we see that participation has been very critical in this process,” Shumba said.
He recommended that key experts should meet regularly to deliberate on environmental and climate issues to the extent that the city can have a permanent seat for academia to come and always infuse their knowledge, and share their expertise, and reports. Shumba said there is a need for a platform for resource mobilization for more environment and climate-focused interventions.
“As Harare Residence Trust, we have some issues that we want to be noted in this whole process. The first part is around the implementation of devolution which is stated clearly in the Constitution from Section 264 through to Section 279.”
Shumba said the policy should specifically state whose mandate it is to collect the garbage from households.
“It would seem that the City of Harare has failed to do so. The city of Harare has failed to the extent that they have surrendered this role to individuals who are making money out of overburdened residents. When they collect, instead of taking it to the Pomona Dumpsite, they are dumping it along our rivers, along our open spaces. And we are concerned that the environment will continue to be polluted.
“Most significantly, as Harare Resident Trust, we continuously object to the forced takeover of the Pomona Dumpsite by Geo Pomona Waste Management. That is an asset of the city of Harare. And as residents, it belongs to us. The only people who we believe must manage that asset are the city of Harare, not a private player,” Shumba said.
Councillor Womberaiishe Nhende, who was standing in for Councillor Jacob Mafume, the Mayor of Harare, highlighted concerns from the residents in terms of their unexplored capacity to contribute toward environmental stewardship and the subsequent institutionalization of their climate-resilience building efforts.
“The onus lies on you that as you leave this boardroom, or upon conclusion of this documentation in terms of policy, you are supposed to go to your respective areas of influence, the areas of autonomy and tell the people that you represent that this is what they have done. Even before the conclusion, you must be able to also take in their input so that they feel to be part and parcel of this process. The first step towards having a workable solution to a crisis or to end opposition is ownership,” Councillor Nhende said.
