Zimbabwe is not a hopeless case

Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai met President Obama on Friday to seek cures for the worst economic performance of any country for which comparable data exists.

While nearly every economy in the world grew over the past decade, even with the current recession, Zimbabweans’ income fell by more than two-thirds. But Zimbabweans can still save their country, given a chance.

The USA is reluctant to grant aid or financial concessions while President Robert Mugabe’s ruling clique still holds most of the power, but the good news is that there are many economic reforms that could have rapid results—unlike aid, which has shackled Africans and fuelled corruption.

Zimbabwe’s neighbours have all seen the effect of opening trade in the last decade and Zimbabwe itself was a big exporter only a few years ago.

Every simplification of tax and business regulations, every bolstering of contract law and public safety has an almost immediate impact on individuals, families and the economy.

But there’s a mountain to climb. Zimbabwe’s long-running cholera epidemic is just another symptom of obstinate and savage oppression. Since 1998, the average life expectancy for Zimbabweans has declined from 55 to 35.

More than 80 per cent of the adult population is unemployed.

Nearly half of all Zimbabweans risk malnutrition and starvation: eight million need food aid, twice as many as just a few years ago.

Zimbabwe’s children suffer the highest mortality, malnourishment and stunted growth of all sub-Saharan Africa.

Mugabe’s corrupt gang keeps power by imposing martial law, stealing land, controlling the media and banning dissent.

Opposition activists have been imprisoned and murdered while a brave judiciary is ignored. The current attempt at bi-partisan government looks like another trick by Mugabe to crush his enemies by pulling them closer.

Region’s breadbasket
Little wonder, then, that thousands flee across the borders into Botswana and South Africa, while thousands more are turned back every day: about a third of the population. lives abroad.

Zimbabwe’s rulers blame the British former colonialists, not Mugabe’s oppression, reckless spending, taxes, business restrictions and inflation.

In the hackneyed, but apt phrase, he has turned the region’s breadbasket into a basket-case.

But Zimbabwe is not a hopeless case: it has the entrepreneurs, the miners, the farmers, the education levels and even a few remaining public servants of a functioning, prosperous country.