By Okay Machisa
THE coming-in of the Second Republic, led by His Excellency President Emmerson Mnangagwa, influenced my departure from ZimRights in 2019, where I had served as the national director for 11 years, since 2008.
My departure from ZimRights was not a forced circumstance but a voluntary decision after the realisation of the people and development-oriented policies of the Second Republic.
To play my part as a patriotic, development-minded citizen, a firm believer in the capabilities of the indigenes, I went to establish the Institute for Public Policy Analysis and Implementation (IPPAI).
I am currently serving IPPAI as executive director, a position that has linked me with Government departments, the Parliament of Zimbabwe, the corporate world, independent commissions and the people of Zimbabwe.
IPPAI is a Zimbabwean patriotic non-profit organisation dedicated to informing and connecting citizens with Government blueprints and other congenital policies.
It fundamentally serves as a viaduct, facilitating comprehension and clarity of Government intentions, ambitions, roadmaps, policies and any other determinations which may compel Zimbabwean citizens to identify with and appreciate.
The institute is proud to be pushing the agenda of Vision 2030 which seeks to fundamentally transform Zimbabwe into an upper-middle income economy as explained by its five key pillars of governance, macro-economic stability and financial re-engagement, inclusive growth, infrastructure and utilities as well as social development.
What makes the organisation celebrate and promote programmes seeking the Zimbabwean growth is the way the Second Republic has managed to craft its policies, putting emphasis on tangible deliverables benefitting ordinary Zimbabwean citizens.
IPPAI’s duty is to facilitate the passage of these policies into the communities and allow citizens to familiarise, interact, socialise and appreciate winnable incremental gains that come with them.
The institute seeks to ensure citizens access Government policies and explain why it is important to support them if we are to achieve sustainable development in the country.
IPPAI is just as good as a mobile classroom with teachers explaining certain critical Government blueprints, policies and aspirations.
Our major mandate is to ensure that we have taken these policies to the people and allow them to interact and familiarise themselves with these important documents.
We also allow constructive criticism in an effort to perfect government policies and their implementation, taking into cognisance the important message by President Mnangagwa that: Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo/Ilizwe liyakhwa ngabanikazi.
For example, Vision 2030 is a document which carries our Government’s ambitions and aspiration and it is our duty as an organisation to explain fully to the citizens what this vision is all about and how all of us, as Zimbabweans, can work towards promoting and breathing life to the contents of the document.
National Development Strategy One (NDS 1) is indeed another blueprint which has the capacity of uniting the nation if we all pull in one direction.
IPPAI has almost completed the process of unpacking and simplifying Vision 2030 and NDS 1 so that comprehension during our community outreach programmes is achievable.
We carry out our outreach programmes using a Mobile Community Education Caravan and this is almost like a classroom. Our goal is to have each province in Zimbabwe conducting such simplified programmes using the Mobile Education Caravan model.
IPPAI has a number of programmes which dovetail with what the Government is doing in communities around the country.
One of these programmes is the Rural Household Water Harvesting Programme, which, once endorsed by the Government, will see most of rural communities embarking on localised household water harvesting, which is part of the efforts to improve food security in the country.
We also have what we call Community Environment Action Trainings, which again are conducted as we go around with our Community Education Caravan.
These programmes are designed to compliment what the Government is already doing in the communities.
As an organisation, the principle that guides our operations is: ‘Tagging the Government’s Ambitions’.
We will always try to promote citizens’ social and economic development by surrogating Government’s aspirations and policies.
Efforts are being made to formalise relations with Government by way of a Memorandum of Understanding and other vehicles of co-operation.
IPPAI, a wholly Zimbabwean funded organisation, stretches its programmes across the country driven by indigenes and an ideology to promote patriotic homegrown development.
Okay Machisa is the executive director of IPPAI and he writes in his own capacity.