This briefing note is the result of a collaborative research process with the Zimbabwean private sector, government representatives, industry organizations and experts, drawing on best practice and senior-level insights to identify policy options for long-term economic revival and expansion in Zimbabwe, and pathways for inclusive development.
Engaging Domestic and International Audiences
International investors and the international financial institutions have been key targets for government messaging around its reform process. The Mnangagwa government’s ‘New Dispensation’ message to the outside world is that ‘Zimbabwe is Open for Business’; this was also a central feature of ZANU-PF’s 2018 election campaign. This internationalization has been driven by the need for external economic stimulus in a domestic context of a small consumer and tax base, low savings and domestic investment. In many ways, the government’s current reform agenda is a continuation and upscaling of the ‘Lima process’ of re-engagement with the international financial institutions and political rapprochement with the Western international community.68
That community has recognized the government’s renewed commitment to reform. For example, when the IMF approved its Staff-Monitored Program for Zimbabwe in May 2019, it noted that Zimbabwe ‘is committed to addressing the macroeconomic imbalances, removing structural distortions to facilitate a resumption in growth, and re-engaging with the international community including by clearing its external arrears’.69 Some Western governments are also understood to be considering resuming bilateral aid programmes.70 However, these bilateral financial commitments remain subject to political reform and improved governance.
Political reforms will also be critical to rebuilding trust between Zimbabwe’s government and its citizens, and to pushing the domestic political and economic re-engagement agenda that must complement international re-engagement. Substantive moves have been made to align national legislation with the constitution. The Public Order and Security Act (POSA) has now been replaced by the Maintenance of Peace and Security Act (MOPA). This has been highly contentious, but has been interpreted by some as a positive step towards aligning security powers with constitutional guarantees of fundamental freedoms, a process that had stalled between 2015 and 2017. However, international audiences will require reassurance that such changes go beyond nomenclature and are bringing about real improvements and alignment to regional and international best practice. Zimbabwe’s parliamentary debates are now screened live on television, and the bipartisan parliamentary portfolio committees in particular continue to do valuable work in holding government, the opposition and the civil service to account. A key platform for interparty political dialogue, the Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD) has begun and it includes most of the smaller parties that contested the 2018 elections.71 The reforms must demonstrate that they encompass the spirit in which they were recommended, and not simply be box-ticking measures.
The government has also engaged with Zimbabwe’s global diaspora, members of which are increasingly courted as potential partners in the country’s future prosperity. The 2015 National Diaspora strategy is being updated, with much wider consultation and inputs from the diaspora. Trade and tourism are important connectors between government, the diaspora and local business, and there are an increasing number of diaspora business and development initiatives in Zimbabwe. The currency situation has, however, tended to act as a brake on such initiatives achieving their full potential. It may be useful for representatives of Zimbabwe’s global diaspora to come together and formulate a common strategy or set of policy proposals as to how it can be full a partner in Zimbabwe’s development. Diaspora groups have established platforms for inter-diaspora dialogue with the government and Zimbabweans within the country. A particular concern has been the need to build on the July 2017 Zimbabwe diaspora conference in Harare, which brought together different diaspora groups, government and other local stakeholders to discuss ways in which the diaspora can be mainstreamed as part of Zimbabwe’s national development. There is an ongoing dialogue among the global diaspora on formulating a common approach and developing a strategic policy document on the diaspora and Zimbabwe.
As a regional hub, linked to neighbouring Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana and South Africa, Zimbabwe needs to be part of a regionally coordinated approach. Zimbabwe is centrally positioned within the North-South Corridor project, for example which is developing a road, rail and port network connecting South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Malawi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The creation of bilateral forums with key export markets, like that between the UK and South Africa, could increase investment. A possible Zimbabwe–UK forum may also help to grow Zimbabwe’s private sector and SMEs, and support Zimbabwe’s emerging micro-business and technology sectors. There is already a bilateral relationship for small business. For example, a delegation from ZimTrade, the country’s trade development and trade organization, visited the UK in September 2019, in partnership with the UK Department for International Trade, bringing SMEs to explore business opportunities. The delegation included representatives from horticulture, arts and crafts, furniture suppliers and biometric access systems design, among others. There is also an active British Business Association in Harare.
68 The Zimbabwean government agreed an arrears clearance programme with the IFIs on the sidelines of the IMF–World Bank Group annual meetings held in Peru in October 2015. See Mangudya, J. (2015), Zimbabwe: Strategies for clearing external debt arrears and supportive economic reform measures, 8 October 2016, Harare: Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, https://www.rbz.co.zw/documents/publications/speeches/strategies-for-clearing-external-debt-arrears-and-supportive-economic-reform-measures.pdf (accessed 26 Sept. 2019).
69 IMF (2019), ‘IMF Managing Director Approves a Staff-Monitored Program for Zimbabwe’, Press Release 19/189, 31 May 2019, https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2019/05/31/pr19189-zimbabwe-imf-managing-director-approves-a-staff-monitored-program (accessed 6 Sept. 2019).
70 Information disclosed to the authors during discussions conducted in Harare under the Chatham House Rule.
71 Chinhara, W. (2019), ‘Polad needs gravitas’, NewsDay, 31 May 2019, https://www.newsday.co.zw/2019/05/polad-needs-gravitas/ (accessed 1 Oct. 2019).