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Resources:
Cursed or Blessed Political Economies? - 'Progress' in Zimbabwe
Conference
Amanda
Atwood, Kubatana.net
November 08, 2010
'Progress' in
Zimbabwe Conference index
page
View audio file details
Speakers:
Showers Mawowa and Richard Saunders
Discussant: Sobona Mtisi
This session
focused on Zimbabwe's mineral wealth, including gold, platinum
and diamonds. But it also discussed other natural resources such
as land and water. Opening the session, Showers Mawowa observed
that often the most resourced countries are also the most unequal.
In Zimbabwe, he observed, at face value accumulation looks bottom
up. But when you look closely, you there are serious networks that
involve senior members of the ruling elite.
Listen
Mawowa commented
that part of the reason why Zimbabwe survived the economic crisis
of the 2000s, is because of the accumulation networks, where you
have informalisation of production that links to the ruling elite
and law enforcement structures. For example, you find a police officer
continues to go to work even though it does not make any economic
sense for him to continue to go to work. But he goes to work because
his job enables to continue to get bribes.
Listen
When you look
at Zimbabwe's development process, Mawowa asked, what potential
is there for these accumulation process to yield to a more progressive
mining regime.
In his presentation,
Richard Saunders observed that the development of Zimbabwe's
mineral sector has gone through three phases. The 1980s marked a
period of state-led regulation and accumulation, the 90s a time
of standard neo-liberalism and calls for foreign direct investment,
and then the collapse of the sector and securotisation in the 2000s.
He observed
that in the literature, trade magazines and businesses papers on
the sector there is a harmonious and disturbing line about what
should be done about the mining Zimbabwe in light of the GPA. It
draws attention back to the 1990s and suggests that the boom of
the 90s can and should be replicated if Zimbabwe returns to a more
systematic and self-disciplined regime around mining. But, Saunders
finds this position problematic. Whilst, he acknowledged, there
was a large boom in the 1990s after liberalisation, the economic
and regulatory conditions that allowed for mining's expansion
in the 1990s also set the political conditions for mining's
collapse in the 2000s.
Listen
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