Catholic diocese in Zimbabwe has rebuilt its own dam as part of faith-based responses to water challenges brought by climate change. The Diocese of Gweru in the country’s low rainfall Midlands province says the Holy Cross Dam, reconstructed at the beginning of this year, will go a long way toward reviving long abandoned agriculture projects.
The dam is also expected to create a greenbelt for local farming communities and drive other downstream economic activities to help support long-term sustainable development. Gweru is in Midlands, one of the country’s 10 provinces that have in recent years experienced below average rainfall, sending agriculture pro-duction into a tailspin that has left thousands of households threatened by hunger.
The construction of the Gweru Diocese dam comes at a time when the Catholic international aid agency Caritas is also helping rural communities with the rehabilitation of a defunct dam as part of efforts to cushion against cli-mate-induced water stress. The government has touted more dam rehabilitation and dam construction as the answer to escalated food production after successive poor harvests due to below normal rainfall.
The government sees dams as a way to power the country’s vast irrigation infrastructure, with the minister of finance media, “When it comes to investment in irrigation, we are going to accelerate investments now that we have the water bodies. We have to impound water. So, it’s an ongoing program to complete dams under construction.” The government says so far that 12 large dams are under construction across the country.