Parly, USAID in US$10m deal

Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter

Parliament is set to renew its partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) after the expiry of a previous agreement in July last year.

USAID mission director Ms Stephanie Funk, met Speaker of the National Assembly Advocate Jacob Mudenda last week to discuss priority areas for US$10 million funding over five years.

“The USAID has had a 20-year partnership with the Parliament of Zimbabwe, we worked on strengthening internal processes in Parliament, the outreach to constituencies (and) the legislative process,” she said.

“We have had a very successful programme. The programme came to an end in July of last year and we are now about to go on and develop a new programme.

“So we spoke with the Speaker about his priorities and they will be incorporated in our request for applications and we look forward in June to signing a new programme for the next five years moving forward with our partnership. The award will be US$10 million over five years.”

Ms Funk said the Speaker had indicated that capacity building of legislators be prioritised.

“He has many priorities about capacity building because 60 percent of the MPs that came in the last election in 2018 are new so there’s a lot of learning that needs to go on about how Parliament works, about reaching out to constituencies, about learning difficult issues that need to be digested in way that people can easily understand what the points are and so we will work with him. Our priorities and his priorities are very much similar,” she said.

She said USAID was also providing humanitarian support.

“Our largest interventions currently are in the humanitarian assistance and support in the health arena particularly in HIV,” she said.

Last year the organisation provided US$370 million in aid to the country.