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Zimbabwe: The disastrous impact of bad government
Refugees International
October 16, 2003

By Larry Thompson

Zimbabwe is in an economic freefall that has already forced more than a million people to migrate to neighbouring countries in search of jobs. Several hundred thousand agricultural workers are displaced or unemployed within the country. Inflation will be about 800 percent this year and unemployment is estimated at 70 percent. Just a few years ago, Zimbabwe was considered one of the bright spots of Africa with a strong economy and good social services.

Three factors account for Zimbabwe’s decline, especially the precipitous drop in the country’s economic fortunes since 2000: the government, HIV/AIDS, and drought. The government deserves most of the blame. In 2000 it began a precipitous land reform campaign, partially to advance social justice and partially to punish its political opponents. More than 3,000 white commercial farmers were forced off their lands and their workers, totaling more than one million persons, counting family members, became mostly unemployed. The ex-farm workers now make up the bulk of Zimbabwe’s 100,000 or more displaced persons.

Refugees International visited rural areas in Zimbabwe and met with displaced persons. One group of 50 was living in a field without shelter. They were formerly landless people who had been re-settled on an expropriated commercial farm three years ago. Thus, they had been beneficiaries of land reform. But three weeks before our visit, they were ordered off their land by government authorities and their houses were burned. They were told they would be given new land but so far nothing had been done for them. Another group encountered alongside a road also reported that they had been told to leave their lands. In both cases, a prominent government official desired their land. Many farmers had not prepared their land for planting in November: no seeds, they said, and no fertilizer and no gasoline for tractors. Survival tactics in the countryside include eating livestock, gold panning, poaching wild game, and -- most importantly -- receiving remittances from relatives working abroad.

Ex-farm workers are reportedly harassed by government supporters. Many of them have been expelled from communities in which they have attempted to resettle. They are often, according to relief workers, excluded from lists of beneficiaries for food and other international assistance. Others have been re-employed by new owners of commercial farms, but farm wages have fallen.

The plight of the ex-farm workers and other rural poor is difficult to assess because the government controls access to rural areas. Diplomats and UN employees are required to inform the government of their plans for travel to the countryside. Failure to do so can result in being arrested. (While RI was visiting Zimbabwe, the South African High Commissioner was "detained" because he was traveling in the countryside without having notified the government.) Some regions of the country are virtually "no go" because of harassment of foreign visitors.

While most people agree that land reform in Zimbabwe was necessary (white farmers owned most of the good agricultural land in the country), the way it was carried out has had a disastrous impact on agriculture, the backbone of the economy. Production has shrunk by more than 50 percent for important crops such as corn and tobacco, and livestock have been decimated by disease and neglect. Agricultural inputs are in short supply for the upcoming planting season in November even though forecasters predict that rains for agriculture will be adequate this year. The consequence will be a severe food shortage for 5 million Zimbabweans -- nearly half the population -- between now and the next harvest season in April 2004. The growing needs for food are coupled with a looming break in the World Food Program’s food pipeline in January due to lack of donations.

The lack of donations is a response to the government’s recent attempts to control the food distribution system. In mid-August, the government ordered that UN Relief and Recovery Unit field offices be closed because UN personnel were not following "procedures." Negotiations, however, led to the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the government on September 25 that affirms that WFP food will be distributed on the basis of "need alone and without prejudice to racial, tribal, political affiliation or religion." Now, donors urgently need to catch up on their donations. WFP has a shortfall between now and next June of 60 percent of its needs: 246,000 tons of food.

The food shortage, lack of jobs, and the government’s hard-ball tactics against its political opponents have led to a massive outflow of Zimbabweans to South Africa, Botswana, and other neighboring countries. South Africa is deporting 1,000 Zimbabweans per week, but is quietly developing contingency plans for a refugee camp in case the flow of Zimbabweans increases. Botswana is building a fence along its borders, ostensibly to keep out diseased Zimbabwean cattle. Unaccompanied Zimbabwean orphans and children are reported to be living in large numbers in border cities such as Messina, South Africa. Moreover, AIDS and a brain drain, primarily to the UK, have decimated Zimbabwe’s technical and managerial population, impacting, for example, what was a few years ago Africa’s best health care system. HIV/AIDS victims in urban areas are among those suffering from lack of food.

The likely consequences of problems in Zimbabwe are increased hunger, a continued flow of migrants to neighboring countries, and the gradual conversion of the countryside into low-income subsistence, rather than commercial, farms. An increase in government repression or reduced cooperation with aid agencies or a failure of donors to provide food aid could also result in massive flights of destitute people, with serious consequences for Zimbabwe’s neighbors.

Refugees International, therefore, recommends that:

• Donors come forward immediately with additional large pledges of food aid to Zimbabwe to arrive in the country by January 2004 when the food shortage will be most critical.
• The UN and other international organizations, governments, and international NGOs continue to impress upon the government of Zimbabwe the necessity of facilitating access to all areas of the country, monitoring aid programs, and the distribution of humanitarian aid on the basis of need. The governments of South Africa and other neighboring countries are most likely to be influential in Zimbabwe.
• Donors consider additional programs providing high protein food, such as corn and soybeans -- expensive and in short supply in Zimbabwe -- to HIV/AIDS victims. The HIV infection rate in Zimbabwe is about 30 percent, one of the highest in the world, and most HIV/AIDS victims encountered by RI were unemployed and destitute.
  

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