GWANDA - The Zimbabwe government, together with United Nations agency, World Food Programme, has launched a food for work programme.

The international donor and government were scrambling to provide adequate food supplies, with treasury pumping US$2 million into the first phase of the programme.
Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe launched the programme in Gwanda this weekend and warned against the politicisation of the food programme.
“Another important principle that we have agreed as Cabinet is that this programme will be apolitical," Khupe said. "Hunger does not discriminate according to political affiliation. All are impacted equally. Therefore, in order to remove political partisanship in the selection of beneficiaries, district drought relief committees will work at village level through community-selected food distribution committees.”
Mugabe's Zanu (PF) party has in the past been accused of withholding food from opposition supporters, according to human rights groups - an observation confirmed by interviews with hungry rural people. Most people in rural Zimbabwe are dependent upon international food aid.
The Minister of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development, Ignatius Chombo, said the programme, which would see communities working on local projects for money, also seeks to promote development while shunning the "dependency syndrome."
The national food mitigation strategy is being spearheaded by the ministry of Labour and Social Welfare in partnership with the Ministry of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development and the World Food Programme. The food programme will be running until 2011 and will be delivered in three phases. The United Nations World Food Programme
(WFP) is struggling to provide enough food. According to Zimbabweans and human rights groups the government routinely withholds supplies to rural people in southern Matabeleland and many other areas which voted for the opposition previously. The WFP has been criticised by Human Rights Watch for not taking a strong line against the political manipulation of food aid. WFP officials say they have corrected any problems.