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.
Politics in Zimbabwe

President Robert Mugabe © Candlemaker (flickr)

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, where necessary bucking the trend in Africa towards higher standards of democracy.

As presidential elections approached in 2008, the 84 year-old Mugabe attempted to postpone them for two years 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. South Africa’s loyalty to Mugabe has been critical in fending off international criticism but Mbeki has failed to exploit his influence to rein in Mugabe’s abuse of state power. His limp declaration in April 2008 that “there is no crisis” has led to a break down of his relationship with Tsvangirai and, despite signs that other key African countries may finally lose patience with Mugabe, has created a dangerous vacuum for a mediated international response to Zimbabwe’s troubles.

Campaign poster for Morgan Tsvangirai, 2008 © frontlineblogger (flickr)

Mbeki was brushed aside by Mugabe's announcement of an early March date for presidential and parliamentary elections, bolstered by an ill-timed split within the MDC between factions led by Professor Arthur Mutambara and Morgan Tsvangirai. As at the preceding 2005 election, observers from Europe and US were not invited. However, an internal team of several thousand observers for the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), a coalition of local NGOs, played a role in what proved to be a relatively calm and open process. The MDC was able to campaign even in areas of traditionally strong support for ZANU PF and proper procedures at polling stations were followed. The capacity of local election officials to post their returns enabled accurate predictions or results to be compiled and did much to prevent any manipulation by the state-controlled Zimbabwe Election Commission.

The result was an unprecedented parliamentary victory for the MDC which gained 99 members against 97 of ZANU PF. As it became clear also that Mugabe trailed in the presidential vote, the generally orderly nature of electoral proceedings came to a halt. The Election Commission stalled the announcement of results for 5 weeks before declaring that Tsvangirai had fallen just short of the 50% of votes necessary for outright victory – he obtained 47.9% against Mugabe’s 43.2%. It soon became clear that Mugabe had decided to resort to familiar tactics to ensure victory at any price in the run-off election scheduled for June 27th. Backed by the military and coordinated by so-called “war veterans”, gangs of ZANU PF thugs have been recruited to threaten presumed MDC supporters and party workers with Operation Mavhoterapapi (who did you vote for?).

Up to 100 people have been killed and thousands detained in punishment camps so that the MDC electoral machine has effectively been dismantled. Rallies have been impossible, Tsvangirai has been arrested repeatedly and delayed in his itinerary, and the MDC secretary-general has been detained on a charge of treason. MDC advertisements have been banned from the media and the ZESN has not been accredited to monitor the vote. Having appealed in vain to the UN for intervention, Tsvangirai may have little option but to withdraw from the election to protect his supporters from further violence. Not surprisingly, he has expressed little sympathy for proposals of a national unity government similar to that established in Kenya.

Civil society has been under threat of violence during this period because of the misconception that NGOs sympathise with the MDC opposition party. Many organisations have closed down their operations out of concern for their staff. The sector has already been harassed by government regulations especially in the context of foreign funding of local human rights organizations and the distribution of food aid.
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.

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. The only privately owned newspapers are expensive weeklies in - The Independent, The Standard and The Financial Gazette. No foreign journalists have official accreditation to work inside the country.

Nevertheless, new media technologies such as blogging and text messaging are succeeding in publishing trustworthy stories for local and global audiences, defying state media control. 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. 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.



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

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