Poverty 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. About one third of the population has fled to South Africa or other neighbouring countries and a further third is dependent on the remittances. Any donor interventions are bound to focus more on short term survival and stability than long term development goals. Indeed even the donors themselves are currently under threat, having received a government directive in June 2008 ordering “the suspension of all field operations until further notice”, on grounds of suspected cooperation with political opponents.

Schoolgirls in Zimbabwe © CamFed

Such is the impact of hyper-inflation that the MDG benchmark of $1 per day for extreme poverty applies to most of the population including vital qualified public sector workers such as nurses, teachers and 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 and providing free primary education - which made Zimbabwe the African country with the highest literacy rate, have been 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 the profile of Zimbabwean agriculture was divided between large white-owned commercial farms producing mostly cash crops such as tobacco on about 25% of the available land, alongside traditional African small “communal farms” largely growing cereals. The supply and marketing infrastructure developed for commercial farms simultaneously ensured that the communal sector was better supported than would otherwise have been the case and Zimbabwe was known as the bread basket of Southern Africa.

Land reforms have 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, allowing the broader infrastructure of the sector to collapse. 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. Drought and floods have been partly to blame but, 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.

Projections for the 2008/09 cereal harvest are 40% down on 2007, meeting less than half of Zimbabwe's own requirements. 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 return. Their prediction is that, by the peak of the hunger season in March 2009, 5.1 million people will be in need of food aid, about 40% of the population and an increase of 1.0 million over 2008. The UN has already 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 has also fallen sharply from 26.1% in 2001 to 15.6% in 2007, partly through mortality but also through essential behaviour change supported by high awareness amongst young people of the risks of HIV. 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. Approximately 1.0 million children have been orphaned and over 1.3 million people live with HIV out of a population of 13.1 million. Whilst the Zimbabwe national HIV and AIDS strategic plan 2006-2010 (ZNASP) includes the goal of universal treatment, only 38% of those in need currently receive antiretroviral drugs. Progress is currently hampered by delays in the release of foreign currency received from donors by the Zimbabwe central bank – agencies have been forced to make complex arrangements to avoid interruption in treatment.
The Economy in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's economy is on the verge of collapse, although President Mugabe has only recently admitted as much. Unemployment is already over 80%. 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.

© 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 OneWorld Zimbabwe Guide was first published in this format in January 2006 with a text written by Volunteer Editor Ontibile Kababongwe.

Help us to include all developing countries
Many countries are missing from our range of Country Briefings. OneWorld wants to fill these gaps as part of our efforts to improve understanding of the issues faced by developing countries. We receive no funding for the production of our educational resources. Every small contribution helps!