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date: 15 February 2025

The Zimbabwean Economic Crisislocked

The Zimbabwean Economic Crisislocked

  • Nyasha Blessed BushuNyasha Blessed BushuUniversity of the Free State
  • , and Ushehwedu KufakurinaniUshehwedu KufakurinaniUniversity of Sussex

Summary

Since attaining independence in 1980, the Zimbabwean economy has witnessed turbulent growth and development. The roots of the country’s economic challenges are arguably deeply embedded in the country’s rugged political terrain and misgovernance. Having inherited a relatively stable economy, the Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), led by Robert Gabriel Mugabe, exerted much of its energies toward consolidating political power through repression and violence during the first ten years of independence. At the beginning of the second decade of independence, visible signs of economic decline led the government to adopt neoliberal economic Structural Adjustment Programs, which did not yield economic recovery but hurled the country into further economic challenges, which manifested in deindustrialization and unemployment, among other negative economic indicators. After nearly two decades of independent rule, the country’s economic woes crystalized in 1997 with the crush of the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. Dubbed the lost decade by some scholars, Zimbabwe faced acute economic challenges going up to 2008 and even beyond. During this period, the challenges facing the country became multidimensional and more protracted. At its peak, the country reached world record inflation rates owing in part, to reduced productivity in the manufacturing and agricultural sectors. This reduced productivity in these sectors is argued to have been prompted by the controversial Fast Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP). It is generally agreed that in the aftermath of the FTLRP, the country exuded signs of unprecedented economic decline. Government intervention in the economy, dubbed command economics by its critics, manifested in price controls and currency reforms that only spurred scarcity of basic commodities and inflation. Brief respite was brought to the economy in 2008 after protracted political negotiations between the country’s major belligerent parties, ZANU-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change, which led to the creation of a Government of National Unity (GNU). Relative political stability led to a brief period of recovery between 2009 and 2013. After a contested presidential election in 2013, the economy again began to show signs of decline and reversal of many of the gains enjoyed during the GNU. Since then, the economy has not recovered, experiencing protracted liquidity challenges, inflationary pressures, and low productive capacity in agriculture and manufacturing.

Subjects

  • Economic History

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