Vendors Initiative for Social and Economic Transformation (VISET) joins the world in commemorating the International Day of Peace.
The day was established in 1981 by the United Nations under resolution UN 36/37 and is dedicated to commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace, both within and among all nations and peace. This year’s theme is End racism. Build peace.
Zimbabwe is a country that attained Independence in 1980, after a protracted war that cost several lives of the black majority. At the heart of the war of liberation was the fight for racial equality and the right to self determination. Today, the nation finds itself in the grip of another war, one that is dominated by the fight for survival, as the majority poor struggle to make a living owing to harsh economic policies and conditions that have caused untold suffering for the past two decades. Food inflation has been estimated to be at 350 percent by the World Bank, the highest in the world.
Zimbabwe’s economic woes, and indeed the world’s have been exacerbated by the war pitting Ukraine against Russia, and has seen skyrocketing of prices of edible oils, grains and cereals. This is largely attributable to the fact that Ukraine accounts for the greatest percent of global exports of grain and oils. The country is the top producer of sunflower meal, oil and seed and is the source of 40 percent of the World Food Programme’s (WFP) wheat supplies, thereby impacting on many of the world’s poorest populations food supplies. The world’s richest countries are not spared either, with prices of fuel and gas being hiked, along with food prices.
The above clearly illustrates the need for world peace as the price is too heavy to pay.
We hope that as the world commemorates this year’s Day of Peace, it brings home the urgency to strive for the end to the Russia Ukraine war and for the United Nations to use the platform of their annual General Assembly to bring together the warring parties and declare an end to the war.
