 
September 3, 2008
Zimbabwe Lifts Foreign Aid Ban, But Problems Remain
Zimbabwe’s government on August 29 ended its ban on support from aid groups, which it imposed in June under suspicion that the organizations were backing opposition to President Robert Mugabe during a heated election season, The New York Times reports.
However, officials from aid groups serving more than a million orphans, schoolchildren, the elderly, people living with HIV and other impoverished Zimbabweans say that the effects of the three-month ban on food, medical and other basic assistance will have lingering effects.
The United Nations World Food Program, for example, had planned to provide food for 1.7 million Zimbabweans in September, but it will be unable to deploy its aid group partners in the field to identify those in need.
“We will not be able to reach most of those 1.7 million people,” World Food Program spokesman Richard Lee told the Times. “We will try to reach as many as possible, but we haven’t even begun to do the essential preparatory work.”
Search: aid groups, United Nations World Food Program, Zimbabwe
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