Employmentweb_low

EmpLoymEnT, work, And HEALTH inEquALiTiES - a global perspective
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Case study 18. The historical roots of the global crisis of Zimbabwe. - antía castedo, Joan benach and carles muntaner
the republic of Zimbabwe (formerly called southern rhodesia, the republic of rhodesia and Zimbabwe rhodesia), is
a landlocked country in the southern part of africa. natural resources are abundant with large reserves of metallurgicalgrade
chromite, as well as other commercial mineral deposits such as coal, copper, asbestos, nickel, gold, platinum, and
iron. agriculture has for many decades been the backbone of the economy, with maize being the country's largest crop and
tobacco the largest export crop, followed by cotton. in spite of its economic richness, in recent decades there has been a
collapse of the agriculture-based economy, and the country has endured rampant inflation and critical food and fuel
shortages. today, the economy of Zimbabwe has fully collapsed, with the world's highest inflation rate (over 100,000%
according official statistics in February 2008, and around 14.000.000% according independent estimates in July 2008). power
cuts are customary, the water supply is drying up and many of Zimbabwe's factories have closed for lack of supplies. Food
supplies are scarce and the fields produce only a fraction of Zimbabwe's needs amid a shortage of seeds, fertiliser and
irrigation. there is vast economic poverty and inequality: the poorest 10 per cent of Zimbabwe's population consume only
about 2 per cent of the economy, while the wealthiest 10 per cent consume over 40 per cent.
employment conditions have worsened dramatically in the last few years. between 1999 and 2003, more than 600,000
jobs were lost in the formal sector, and thousands of home-based businesses, which are the core of the informal sector,
were eliminated, leaving thousands without sources of income. about 80 per cent of the population is unemployed. in rural
areas near mineral reserves, people dig or pan for gold or diamonds, risking their lives in shallow mines which frequently
collapse. but poor people feel they have little choice if they are to survive, even if they have to face police detentions, which
have occurred under the campaign "chikorokoza chapera" (the end of illegal gold dealings) following concerns over
rampant smuggling of precious stones and environmental degradation in mining areas. in the cities, the streets are
overcrowded with unemployed school-leavers and able-bodied men desperate to feed their families. hundreds of thousands
of Zimbabweans, including much-needed professionals, have emigrated. With the Zimbabwean economy in ruins, about 3
million people, a quarter of the population, have left the country in search of work, mainly in south africa. many more people
will leave the country. rural areas are already inhabited mostly by the very young who are looked after by the elderly after
the intervening generation fled Zimbabwe in search of work. Zimbabwe has one of the world's lowest life expectancies (37
years for both men and women) and infant mortality is high, with 51.12 per 1,000 live births dying of the most advanced forms
of vitamin deficiency. Families in which a grandmother or a child is the head are a growing social phenomenon, often the
result of the aids epidemic. For the one-third of the population infected with hiv, the cost of drugs has just risen 4,000 per
cent to 1.3bn Zimbabwe dollars a month.
While many simple explanations have been attributed to Zimbabwe's global crisis (i.e., a drought affecting the entire
region, the hiv/aids epidemic, the failure of government price controls and land reforms, or the persistence of mugabe's
regime for almost three decades), the deeper causes of the current situation need to be understood through an historical
analysis which takes into account the legacy of colonisation and the political forces that have led the country.
the colonial era (1890 - 1980) had a destructive impact on the lives of Zimbabweans. not only was their heritage stolen,
but the best farmland and resources were also taken by british colonists. decades of domination and oppressive colonial
rule were fuelled by the ideas of cecil rhodes, an enthusiastic believer in colonialism and brutal conqueror of the region at
the end of the 19th century. by 1922, two-thirds of the native Zimbabweans were confined to reserves in tribal areas, and
various laws forced them to work on european farms. in the 1940s and 1950s, faced with a wave of strikes and growing
political awareness among black urban workers, the british labour government encouraged more white emigration to
support the colonial regime in rhodesia. thus, all the managerial and privileged jobs went to whites and systematic
discrimination against the african population was legally enforced.
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