Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of amendments to the Private Voluntary Organizations Act in Zimbabwe on (a) the citizens of and (b) UK aid projects in that country.

We are monitoring the human rights situation in Zimbabwe including the proposed Private Voluntary Organisations (PVO) Amendment Bill for civil society organisations, which has not yet been signed into law. We regularly assess its potential impact on civil society and UK aid projects in the country, which will depend on whether it is passed into law, the final text and how it would then be implemented.

We continue to engage with the Government of Zimbabwe, publicly and privately, on allowing space for civil society organisations to operate freely both in the specific context of the upcoming 2023 general elections and also longer term, as part of our dialogue on governance reforms and human rights, in concert with the wider international community. Indeed, during the conversation I had with President Mnangagwa in the margins of the Coronation we discussed human rights issues and the importance of peaceful, credible, and inclusive elections in Zimbabwe later this year.