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ZIMBABWE: A downgrade in country's status causes friction
IRIN
News
June 20, 2006
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54059
JOHANNESBURG
- A furore has erupted over a UN committee's recommendation to rank
Zimbabwe as a least-developed country (LDC).
Zimbabwean officials were furious at the UN Committee for Development
Policy's findings that Zimbabwe, along with Papua New Guinea, was
eligible for inclusion in the list of 50 LDCs. The committee said
Zimbabwe had not only remained a low-income country for a protracted
period, but had also become more economically vulnerable.
In assessing a country's economic vulnerability, the committee among
other factors considers food security, instability of exports of
good and services and share of agriculture in the country's income.
Government spokesman George Charamba was quoted in the Sunday edition
of the Daily Chronicle as dismissing the committee's findings. "They
want to create [an impression] that the country has failed. Our
position remains the same that we are not beggars. We are not a
poor country and we want to be rated accordingly. We need the correct
position that we deserve".
He maintained the country's problems were a result of "illegal sanctions"
imposed by western nations. The government's rejection of the findings
means the country cannot be included in the official table of LDCs.
According to some UN officials, the issue of Zimbabwe's classification
has become "highly politicised", with the government on the one
hand alleging a plot to denigrate the country, and humanitarian
workers arguing the authorities should face the reality of the unfolding
crisis.
Zimbabwean economist Professor Tony Hawkins said the UN committee
had taken "objective criteria" into consideration. He pointed out
that over the past two decades, Zimbabwe had slipped from a middle-income
country to a low-income one as a result of government policies.
"And now to be put in the LDC category is embarrassing for the government".
According to Diana Games, a researcher with the South African Institute
for International Affairs (SAIIA), Zimbabwe has experienced a more
than 30 percent drop in its Gross Domestic Product in the past four
years.
"It has gone from being one of the most successful economies on
the continent to a country plagued by food shortages, reduced industrial
capacity, declining exports and massive unemployment ... Factory
output has fallen [by] 45.6 percent since 1998, and manufacturing
levels are at their lowest since 1971".
Besides economic vulnerability, the UN committee also assesses health,
nutrition, poverty levels and education, while drawing up its list
of LDCs.
"Zimbabwe's inflation is at 1,200 percent - the highest for any
country not at war - this in itself speaks volumes of the state
of the country," said Tafadzwa Mugabe, a spokesman for the NGO,
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. "Rather than remain in a state
of denial", he noted the government could benefit from reclassification,
"however unpleasant" that prospect would be for the authorities.
Hawkins explained that as LDC, Zimbabwe would qualify for debt-relief
and other multilateral assistance.
Many analysts trace the beginning of Zimbabwe's economic crisis
to a commitment of one-third of its troops to the conflict in the
Democratic Republic of Congo in the late 1990s, and an unbudgeted
payout to veterans of its independence struggle, which led to the
suspension of aid by the International Monetary Fund. A chaotic
land redistribution programme begun in 2000, and several seasons
of bad rains, further hurt the agro-based economy.
Games said in a recent SAIIA report that even the most optimistic
growth projections "suggest that it will take 15–20 years [for Zimbabwe]
to regain the living standards of the mid-1990s".
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