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Millennium Development Goals in Zimbabwe

Millions still depend on food aid in Zimbabwe © IRIN

Any discussion of the pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Zimbabwe is superfluous in the current context of social and economic breakdown. The economy has contracted by 35% in 4 years, health and education services are undermined by strikes, staff shortages and unaffordable fees, and everyday household goods are either unavailable or command astronomic prices. Millions prefer to take their chances as illegal immigrants in South Africa or other neighbouring countries. Any donor interventions are bound to focus more on short term survival and stability than long term development goals.

Schoolgirls in Zimbabwe © CamFed

Such is the impact of extreme inflation that the MDG benchmark of $1 per day for extreme poverty applies to most of the population including qualified healthworkers, teachers and public sector workers such as the police. As well as driving up prices of household essentials, the current inflation rate has seen school fees soaring continually. The strides made prior to 1998 through building schools close to residential areas and in provision of free primary education, which made Zimbabwe the African country with the highest literacy rate, are quickly being eroded. The teachers’ union says that almost a quarter of Zimbabwe's teachers have moved abroad in 2007 alone.

Food Security in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwean girl with food sack © Obinna Anyadike / United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Network

Until recently commercial farming contributed 50% of Zimbabwe’s export earnings. Although these figures include tobacco, the country was known as the bread basket of Southern Africa. Land reform had aimed to reverse the racially divisive distribution of the colonial period but the government’s expropriation of properties managed by white farmers proved unplanned and chaotic. Production in the most recent harvest of 2007 will exceed barely 50% of Zimbabwe’s own requirements. Drought and floods have been partly to blame but government policies have failed to ensure adequate training and access to seed and fertiliser inputs, irrigation structures have not been maintained and price controls have diminished the basic incentive to farm. With stories circulating that many farmers find it more profitable to sell firewood than tend their land, the government is now stepping in to reclaim some of the expropriated farms.

Although imported food is arriving from Malawi and Zambia, Zimbabwe lacks the foreign exchange necessary to feed its own people. Having refused entry to the Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Food Programme (WFP) in 2006, the government has backtracked in allowing these agencies to conduct an assessment during 2007. Their prediction is that, by the peak of the hunger season in March 2008, 4.1 million people will be in need of food aid, a third of the population and a very substantial increase over current beneficiary numbers. The UN has consequently launched a massive humanitarian appeal for 2008 for over $300 million. Donors will be concerned that the government's aid distribution will overcome a history of inefficiency and bias at election times.
Health and HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe

World Water Day march in Harare, March 2007 © Martin Ager/UN-Water

Malnutrition has inevitable consequences for health indicators, affecting especially the young, old and those living with AIDS. Life expectancy in Zimbabwe may now have fallen below 40 years, possibly the lowest in the world. Child mortality has increased 50% since 1990 with one in eight children dying before the age of five and about a third of all children have stunted growth. The chronic state of water provision and sewage treatment in the two major cities, Harare and Bulawayo, presents a potential urban health crisis.

On a brighter note, the number of malaria cases fell dramatically from 3.0 million in 2004 to 1.8 million in 2006, with 70% of children now sleeping under treated bednets. The prevalence of HIV fell from 33% in 2002 to 18.1% in 2006, largely attributable to the multi-sectoral approach used in the combating the virus through essential behaviour change. Local and international support has been solicited and people have united against HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases, achieving this significant progress.

Lucia - Zimbabwean AIDS orphan © Television Trust for the Environment

Nevertheless, HIV/AIDS has taken a terrible toll in human terms and there is concern that the economic crisis may undermine progress and discourage donors. For example, the number of AIDS deaths is believed to be increasing, partly because antiretroviral treatment is in decline, the average price of $42 per month being far beyond the reach of ordinary citizens. Only 6% of children in need of treatment are receiving it; overall 91,000 receive treatment out of an estimated 321,000 in need.

Approximately 1.3 million children have been orphaned and over 1.7 million people live with HIV out of a population of 13.1 million. HIV prevalence in young women between the ages of 15–19 is five times that of males in that age group because of intergenerational sex. Economic disparities, cultural and traditional beliefs have also exposed girls to sexual violence at a time when HIV is seething. Transactional sex in its varying forms and magnitudes is also a challenge. At times higher remunerations are offered when a condom is not used.
Politics in Zimbabwe

President Mugabe launching the ZANU PF campaign, 2005 © Institute for War and Peace Reporting

Since Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, Mr. Robert Gabriel Mugabe has been at the helm of the government, first as prime minister and then as president after he merged the two positions in 1987. Mugabe’s Marxist background inclined him to construct a one party state but former colleagues such as Mr. Edgar Tekere and Margaret Dongo fought against this principle. Eventually in 1999 Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai formed the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), a party that has become a major threat to Mugabe's ZANU PF. Since that time the president has adopted tactics of ruthless aggression against political opponents most notably in the parliamentary election of March 2005 which was marked by voter intimidation led by Mugabe’s youth brigade known as the Green Bombers.

Showing little interest in retirement, 84 year-old president Mugabe even attempted to postpone presidential elections for two years to 2010 but this proposal was thrown out by his own party, perhaps a sign of infighting within ZANU PF over the succession.

Sekai Holland, MDC official, recovering from police violence, March 2007 © The Kubatana Trust of Zimbabwe

After pictures of beatings handed out by police to Tsvangirai and MDC colleagues at an assembly in March 2007 were circulated around the world, members of the Southern African Development Community asked President Mbeki of South Africa to mediate between the main Zimbabwean parties. Mbeki’s efforts prompted modest amendments to media and security legislation but failed to resolve differences over voting rights for the diaspora, security guarantees for electioneering, and constitutional amendments to create a framework for free and fair elections. For example, there are concerns that the allocation of new constituencies has been weighted towards rural areas where ZANU PF is strongest.

The Mbeki discussions were abruptly terminated by Mugabe’s announcement of an early March date for elections, pre-empting opposition pleas for a reasonable period of preparation. There are no fewer than four elections to be held simultaneously – presidential, parliamentary, the Senate, and local – creating an unmistakeable sense of chaos in proceedings. As at the 2005 election, observers from Europe and US are not being invited.

Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai © Radio Netherlands Wereldomroep

A surprise development has been the decision of Simba Makoni, former Minister of Finance, to stand against Mugabe as an independent. Although promptly expelled by ZANU PF, Makoni has the support of former Defence and Home Affairs Minister Dumiso Dabengwa, and has managed to nominate parliamentary candidates in most constituencies. Mugabe is however bolstered by an ill-timed split within the MDC between factions led by Professor Arthur Mutambara and Morgan Tsvangirai. The Mutambara faction of the MDC has pledged support for Simba Makoni.

Civil society has been under threat because of the misconception that NGOs sympathise with the MDC opposition party. The sector is harassed by government regulations especially in the context of foreign funding of local human rights organizations and the distribution of food aid. For example, in April 2007 the government threatened to cancel all NGO registrations, with the implication that some groups would be obstructed in the process of re-registering.
Human Rights in Zimbabwe

There is no right of assembly in Zimbabwe nor tolerance of even peaceful protests. The relevant legal instrument is the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) which the government uses to ban rallies and meetings, enforced by violent police aggression. For example, a public protest against rising prices called by trade unions in September 2006 was stifled on the day by the immediate arrest of the union leaders. The extrajudicial torture meted out to these 15 leaders in Harare caused international outrage. Mugabe congratulated the police on their actions, an unapologetic stance which was repeated after the 2007 attack on Tsvangirai.

After the bulldozers, Harare, 2005 © Institute for War and Peace Reporting

700 000 Zimbabweans were left homeless in 2005 following demolition of their informal urban habitats under operation murambatsvina (clear out filth) which the government claimed was a clampdown on law and order. Wider opinion is that the operation was politically motivated as an action against potential strikers and MDC supporters. Although President Mugabe defended his actions at the Millennium Summit in New York, a high level UN report condemned the operation for causing unjustifiable suffering to so many disadvantaged people. Promises of rehousing have not been fulfilled.

A denunciation of Zimbabwe’s human rights practices by the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR), an African Union (AU) Institution, is a long awaited development. The new president of Nigeria, Umaru Yar-Adua, is the only African leader so far to condemn Mugabe’s unlawful actions.

President Mugabe has hammered a final nail in his coffin of human rights credentials by refusing Ethiopia’s request for the extradition of former dictator Colonel Mengistu, one of the world’s most wanted men who has been found guilty of crimes of genocide in the 1970s.
Information and Media in Zimbabwe

Closed offices of the Daily News, Zimbabwe © Radio Netherlands Wereldomroep

The four radio stations and one television station in Zimbabwe are all state owned and are managed by Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings. This ensures that the people only hear the voice of the government which at times churns out propaganda. The only privately owned newspapers are weeklies in the form of The Independent, The Standard and The Financial Gazette. There is widespread concern about events amongst the sizeable Zimbabwean diaspora and, despite the complete absence of foreign journalists inside the country, innovative programmes are succeeding in publishing trustworthy stories for a global audience. Such efforts may however come under threat from the new Interception of Communications Act which, subject to obtaining a warrant, enables the authorities to eavesdrop on electronic and telephone communication.
The Economy in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s economy is on the verge of collapse, although President Mugabe has only recently admitted as much. There are widely differing views as to the causes of the crisis. The government argues that the traditional dependence on agriculture (tobacco as its cash crop and maize the staple diet) has been undermined by years of drought, just as in other countries in the region. And it claims that sanctions undermine economic reconstruction.

Old zimbabwean dollars © United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Network

The alternative view held by many observers is that President Mugabe and his government have been the architect of their own misfortunes. Zimbabwe’s economic woes were arguably precipitated by involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo war (1998–2002) which incurred expense beyond the country’s means. Apart from an arms embargo, economic sanctions target only the country’s leadership through travel bans and frozen bank accounts. The Zimbabwean central bank’s management of hyper-inflation has ignored advice from the IMF, printing money like confetti and enforcing arbitrary price cuts which render businesses unviable.

Rural poverty in Zimbawe © Radio Netherlands Wereldomroep

The government has furthermore failed to sustain normal relations with the international community. Expelled by the Commonwealth in 2002, now on the verge of expulsion by the IMF and cut off from almost all mainstream sources of aid, President Mugabe has been forced to look to new relationships with China with whom multi-billion dollar investments in return for raw materials are under negotiation. Western aid that totalled $350 million in 1995 has dwindled substantially. Even life-saving remittances from the Zimbabwean diaspora are now compulsorily intercepted by the country’s central bank.

The government has chosen this moment to introduce the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Bill which will compel businesses to award at least 51% of shareholdings to black indigenous individuals. Unemployment is already over 80%. One estimate suggests that the eventual reconstruction of Zimbabwe will cost $1 billion pa for 10 years.



Ontibile Kababongwe is a journalist and human rights activist based in Zimbabwe

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