Civil Protection (Declaration of State of Disaster Rural and Urban Areas of Zimbabwe) (El Niño-induced Drought, 2023/4 Rainfall Season) Notice, 2024

Acting under section 27(1) of the Civil Protection Act [Chapter 10:06], the President has declared that a state of disaster exists in all rural and urban areas of Zimbabwe as a result of the drought brought on by the El Nino weather phenomenon in the 2023/24 rainfall season. The declaration takes effect from the date of promulgation, 3 April 2024, and was published in a Government Gazette Extraordinary.

The notice defines its reach carefully so that nowhere falls outside it. An urban area is a municipal area, town area or local government area; a town ward of a rural district council or an area declared a specified area under the Rural District Councils Act [Chapter 29:13]; or a township as defined in the Land Survey Act [Chapter 20:12]. A rural area is everything else.

The notice itself contains no relief measures, budgets or powers — it is the trigger. What follows from it are the Civil Protection Act's disaster machinery: the mobilisation of the national civil protection structures, access to disaster funds, and the coordination of government and donor drought relief across the country.

One printing note: the running header on the first page reads 'S.I. 12 of 2023' while the instrument is Statutory Instrument 55 of 2024.