By Staff Reporter

THE Head of the European Union delegation in Zimbabwe Timo Olkonen has said the EU is supporting the country’s mostly agricultural projects to the tune of between US$40 million to US$50 million.

Speaking in an interview with this publication after the tour of the projects in Kwekwe, Gokwe and Kadoma Olkonen said the projects are set to improve livelihoods.

“The purpose of the visit was to tour the EU supported projects in Kwekwe, Gokwe and Kadoma by the European Union. We visited the IPVC (Inclusive Poultry Value Chain) project in Kwekwe and it is set to improve livelihood of beneficiaries and improve nutritional habits. Poultry is a good and affordable protein source,” he said.

The market in Mbizo will shelter 1 568 birds and is set to be officially opened on the 22nd of November this year.

Project beneficiaries will be selling their chickens and eggs there.

“The digester seeks to eradicate the use of firewood in chicken rearing and move towards the use of materials such as cattle and chicken manure in production of methane. This green technology is climate friendly and will reduce deforestation,” he said.

“In addition, we also visited Sable Chemicals where the German Development Corporation Agencies is ss supporting Sable Chemicals find technical solutions to allow on reducing pollution and climate change gases to be released into the atmosphere. We also visited the Sable Chemicals plant as a way of understanding their operations,” he said.

“Our support to agricultural projects is not limited to Midlands so we might now have a separate figure for Midlands since we are supporting projects nationally. And the figures for the support are around $USD40-$USD50 million,” he said.

Olkonen also said the delegation also interfaced with the civil society groups in Midlands.

“We also engaged with the civil society in Kwekwe and Non-Governmental Organisations from the different parts of the Midlands area where we discussed some of the social issues around Midlands. We were talking about the artisanal mining activities and the social consequences of their activities. We gained an explanation that many young people are being engaged in artisanal mining in an uncontrolled manner. We also discussed on issues of gender-based violence as well,” he said.