• Engage in dialogue with the international community to seek durable solutions to problems with access to adequate food in Zimbabwe. Invite the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food to Zimbabwe to report on the food situation and allow him unrestricted access. To International Donors, including the European Union, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States: • Increase donor support for agricultural inputs to farmers, including resettled farmers, throughout Zimbabwe. • Provide food aid strictly on the basis of need throughout Zimbabwe. • Engage in dialogue with the Government of Zimbabwe to seek durable solutions to problems with access to adequate food in Zimbabwe. III. BACKGROUND Erratic weather patterns, the fast track land reform program’s flawed implementation,1 and a shortage of agricultural inputs have resulted in acute food shortages in Zimbabwe since late 2001. Other contributing factors include the government’s mismanagement of the economy, which has led to hyperinflation, shortage of foreign currency and high unemployment; and HIV/AIDS, which has infected almost 25 percent of Zimbabwe’s population. 2 In response to previous years’ food shortages and the GMB’s limited capacities, the government requested international food aid to supplement the GMB’s food distributions.3 The efficiency and effectiveness of international food aid has been undermined, however, by the highly opaque nature of information—made possible in large part by the government’s crackdown on the media and other basic civil liberties and political freedoms4—surrounding the GMB’s operations, agricultural production, and other issues considered to reflect poorly on the fast-track land reform program. 1 Under the fast track land reform program, black Zimbabweans were resettled onto commercial farm land formerly owned by minority white farmers. See Charles Utete, Report of the Presidential Land Review Committee on the Implementation of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme, 2000-2002 (‘The Utete Report’), (Harare: Government of Zimbabwe, 2003) and Human Rights Watch, “Fast Track Land Reform in Zimbabwe,” A Human Rights Watch Short Report, Vol. 14, No. 1 (A), March 2002, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/zimbabwe. 2 Farmers have also been discouraged from growing maize due to government price controls on maize. 3 The main donor countries funding food aid in Zimbabwe are the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Revised Consolidated Appeal for Zimbabwe – 2004, (New York/Geneva: U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2004), p. 148. 4 In particular, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), and the Miscellaneous Offences Act have been used to undermine the freedoms expression and association. In September 2003, Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), publisher of The Daily News, Zimbabwe’s only independent daily, was closed when the Supreme Court ruled that it was operating in violation of AIPPA. The Administrative Court subsequently ruled that the ANZ could reopen. The government is now appealing the Administrative Court’s decision and the ANZ is contesting the constitutionality of select section of 3