Some Perceptions on the Poverty Question in Zimbabwe

In Hopley Farm, Harare, 8,500 adults live in makeshift housing: out of 2,000 school age children, 75% are out of formal school. (July 2010)

By Busani Mpofu

The World Bank estimated urban poverty in Zimbabwe in 1990/91 to be 12 percent while the 1995 Poverty Assessment Study found urban poverty to be 39 percent. In January 2009, Save the Children estimated that 10 out of 13 million Zimbabweans, over 75 percent of the population, were living in ‘desperate poverty.’ In April 2010, UNICEF noted that 78 percent of Zimbabweans were “absolutely poor” and 55 percent of the population, (about 6.6 million) lived under the food poverty line while New Zimbabwe estimated that more than 65 percent of Zimbabweans lived below the poverty datum line in December 2009. Recently, commentators have argued that it is very clear that poverty is increasing in the country. The sense we get from the above statistics is that some agencies have defined certain percentages of Zimbabweans as poor, below some abstractly conceived poverty lines. The statistics, however, do not tell us how long those poor people have existed in poverty conditions or the historical and social dimensions of people’s understandings of poverty-what it is to ‘be poor.’

This article attempts to tackle some perceptions about poverty in Zimbabwe, partly addressing the issue of the changing understandings of what being ‘poor’ has meant to those perceived as poor. Drawing from the experiences of the urban poor, I also attempt to explore historical and social dimensions of people’s understandings of poverty-what it is to ‘be poor’. This is partly because what people do for themselves, as poverty alleviation strategies, presumably turns crucially on how they understand their own circumstances (rather than on whether the state or some other agency defines them as poor or not). Inevitably, the centrality of unemployment as the main cause of poverty featured high among urban Africans during the colonial period. The conception of unemployment, however, appeared to have changed in the post-colonial era especially after 2000 when some professional jobs like teaching began to be associated with poverty.

Perceptions on identifying poverty, its causes and solutions as perceived by the poor themselves, politicians, planners, practitioners, academics and outsiders vary considerably. Other scholars have contended that the problem of...Read more

Foreign Aid Dilemmas under Zimbabwe’s Inclusive Government

Food aid being distributed in Zimbabwe

By Norma Kriger

Western donors understandably tread warily in Zimbabwe where ZANU PF remains the overwhelmingly dominant governing party in a formal coalition government. The “Inclusive Government” (IG) was formed in February 2009, following the signing of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) in September 2008 by ZANU PF, Tsvangirai’s MDC (MDC-T) and a smaller MDC formation. Western governments, initially opposed to the formation of a coalition government, continue to enforce travel bans and asset freezes against ZANU PF individuals and ZANU PF-affiliated entities. ZANU PF has persisted with its strident animosity to Western governments and donors, and has made these sanctions policies a major reason for stalling on the implementation of the GPA. While ZANU PF blames the sanctions for retarding economic recovery, Western bilateral donors rightly point to their substantial humanitarian aid – nearly US$651 million or 15-20% of GDP in 2009. This aid also happens to boost the image of the MDC parties, which were allocated Ministerial control of services, including health and education, while ZANU PF ensured it retained the security and foreign affairs Ministries, among others.

The role of Western foreign aid in this highly polarized internal politics is surely one reason why analysts have not focused much on its actual political impact. Instead, the politics of the political parties’ discourse or rhetoric has received much more attention, with particular focus on how ZANU PF depicts the West as undermining national sovereignty and seeking regime change. Another reason for the relative dearth of analysis about the political effects of foreign aid would seem to be some acquiescence that Western donor aid has generally benefited the opposition forces, chiefly MDC-T and civil society organizations, as intended.

Using a few cases drawn mainly from recently published reports whose main concerns were not about foreign aid, I highlight some dilemmas of foreign aid in Zimbabwe today. These cases suggest that, as in many other countries (Gourevitch, 2010), foreign aid has also had unintended and/or perverse political consequences in Zimbabwe. Its perverse impacts appear to include the strengthening of ZANU PF’s power and patronage resources and arguably a weakening of opposition forces or the shaping of an opposition ill-suited to transforming authoritarian rule.

International...Read more

The Role of War Veterans in Zimbabwe’s Political and Economic Processes

Violent land seizures began in Zimbabwe in 2000 carried out by "war veterans"

Paper presented by Wilfred Mhanda to the SAPES Trust Policy Dialogue Forum in Harare on 7 April 2011. Wilfred Mhanda, aka Dzinashe Machinugura, was a commander of the Zimbabwe People’s Army (Zipa), and in the leadership of the alternative Zimbabwe Liberators Platform.

Zimbabwe’s former liberation fighters have become a household name for all the wrong reasons. This paper will seek to trace the development of the role of war veterans in Zimbabwe’s political and economic processes particularly from 1997 onwards to date and provide a contextual background for their perceived role and put the public perception of the former fighters in perspective.

The war veterans came into being with the demobilisation of those former ZIPRA and ZANLA fighters who were not attested into the Zimbabwe National Army, ZNA in 1980. The advent of Zimbabwe’s independence on 18 April 1980 and the subsequent formation of the Zimbabwe National Army made the former liberation armies both superfluous and redundant as their mission of liberating Zimbabwe had been accomplished. ZIPRA and ZANLA no longer had any role to play in an independent Zimbabwe. From then onwards, we could only refer to former ZANLA and former ZIPRA fighters. It is these fighters who then became referred to as veterans of the national liberation war. Maintaining the ZIPRA/ZANLA labels and their links to the liberation parties would have only served to undermine the unity and cohesion of the new army as evidenced by the counter-productive ZANLA/ZIPRA clashes in places like Entumbane in 1980/81.

The former fighters were weaned off from their parent political parties ZANU and ZAPU and their welfare became the responsibility of the new Government of Zimbabwe and not of their former mother parties. Any links with the political parties could only now continue in terms of individual membership of those political parties. It is instructive to note that, technically, the overwhelming majority of the former fighters were never card carrying members of the political parties ZANU and ZAPU that parented ZALNLA and ZIPRA; nor were they required to do so. They became registered members of the parties’ armed wings and not the parties. All that was required of them was the commitment to fight...Read more

Transforming and Preventing Polarization by Embracing Strategy Dilemmas: An Outsider View on Lessons from Zimbabwe

Cover: Polarization and Transformation: Social Movements, Strategy Dilemmas and Change

By Erin McCandless – Erin McCandless consults with the United Nations on a range of peacebuilding, statebuilding and development issues, and teaches part-time at the Graduate Program for International Affairs at the New School, in New York. She is also Co-Executive Editor of the Journal of Peacebuilding and Development.

Introduction

It is common and understandable for people living in divided or developing countries to tire of international researchers coming to examine their plight, observing their situation from particular disciplinary and/or experiential lenses, often rapidly assessing the situation after a short period in the country and after speaking with a limited number of people. They often don’t share the fruits of their labour with the society that hosted them.

Having lived in Zimbabwe (January 2001-June 2004) where I conducted my doctoral field research, followed by numerous trips back to the region in the years that have followed, I am finally publishing a book. I am guilty of taking a long time in sharing findings; like most doctoral students, I had to make a living in the interim and the book was put on the back burner. But my belief in the importance of these issues that drove my research ensured that I kept coming back to Zimbabwe.[1] In this short paper I want to present some of the findings of my forthcoming book – Polarization and Transformation: Social Movements, Strategy Dilemmas and Change. I also want to share my motives and assumptions that drove the research, and my thoughts on why I think Zimbabwe’s challenges matter greatly to a larger international audience, beyond the powerful forces focused on regime change.

After coming to Zimbabwe to start my fieldwork, my intended research focus changed considerably, often the case with qualitatively oriented researchers. Originally I was planning to examine the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative (SAPRI), which sought to create a process for civil society to evaluate the impacts of structural adjustment policies. Zimbabwe was...Read more

The Changing Politics of Matebeleland since 1980

Signing of the Unity Accord - painting by Owen Maseko

by Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni – Associate Professor of Development Studies at the University of South Africa

Introduction

I think the best way to understand the present day manifestations and character of Matebeleland politics is to situate them properly historically and politically within the broader terrain of the development of the idea of Zimbabwe and the eventual configuration of the Zimbabwe nation-state. The changing nature of politics in Matabeleland is largely a response to realities and perceptions of exclusion, marginalisation and confinement to second class citizenship of Ndebele-speaking people that began in 1980. The politics that is emerging from Matebeleland region is that of protest to perceptions and realities of exclusion, marginalisation and domination. The launch of such radical formations as the Matebeleland Liberation Front (MLF) last year calling for complete secession of Matebeleland and Midlands regions from Zimbabwe is the climax of regional politics of frustration and resentment of domination.

President Robert Mugabe’s recent response to the developments taking place in the MDC led by Welshman Ncube and his seemingly overt support for Arthur Mutambara to remain as Deputy Prime Minister and refusal to swear-in Welshman Ncube as the new Deputy Prime Minister is fuelling perceptions of Ndebele-speaking leaders being unwanted and excluded from the corridors of power. It is therefore important to deploy a sober analysis that seeks to understand the motive forces behind the character of politics in Matabeleland since the 1980s. While one can get some glimpse of the core grievances from such forums as newzimbabwe.com and many others, it is equally important to situate the Matebeleland problems historically.

The idea of Zimbabwe and Matabeleland question

The idea of Zimbabwe is traceable to the 1960s. It emerged as a nationalist idea and an imagination of the postcolonial nation-state. The idea emerged within a terrain saturated with various ethno-cultural societies such as the Matebele Home Society, Monomotapa Offspring Society, Kalanga Cultural Society and many others-socio-cultural societies that indicated where the people were coming from and how they were responding...Read more

Reflections on Human Rights Discourse and Emancipation in Africa in the Twenty-first Century

This Cape registered cross border transporter was seen at Beitbridge with this precarious load: in July 2010, Zimbabweans were sending their worldly possessions back home as a precaution against losing everything again in xenophobic attacks.

By Professor Mike Neocosmos – Centre for Humanities Research UWC, South Africa

At the very time when it most often mouths the word, the West has never been further from being able to live a true humanism – a humanism made to the measure of the world (Aimé Césaire).

Whoever is engaged in popular struggles for democratic emancipation in Africa today is confronted with an immediate problem concerning human rights.  While on the one hand a discourse of rights is seemingly necessary for thinking democratisation  given that the state regularly flouts these, on the other human rights seem to refer to a discourse mainly propounded by neo-liberal interests whether local or foreign.  Several repressive regimes in Africa and elsewhere (Zimbabwe, Sudan, maybe Cote D’Ivoire, Iran) oppose a discourse of nationalism to one on human rights.  As an activist, one finds oneself in a seemingly irresolvable discursive contradiction between human (predominantly individual) rights and national (or group or identity) rights.  At times this contradiction is central to government itself.  For exampling in Thabo Mbeki’s South African government, a central contradiction appeared in the form of a commitment to neo-liberal conceptions of rights on the one hand along with a sensitivity to national and racial oppression in Africa on the other. This was reflected in government reactions to a number of different issues including Zimbabwe. In fact this contradiction is arguably constitutive of the subjectivity of the new South African bourgeoisie itself.  On the one hand their private accumulation is premised on an adherence to neo-liberal precepts including human rights, on the other a sensitivity to racism and to a lesser extent to Western hegemony in African affairs is also evident.  The manner in which the vagaries of this contradiction were navigated explains much regarding Mbeki’s presidency (Neocosmos, 2002).

But...Read more

International Views of Zimbabwe

By Stephen Chan – Professor of International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London. Yale University Press will release Professor Chan’s Southern Africa: Old Treacheries and New Deceits in 2011. A South African edition will be published by Jonathan Ball.

There is no single view of Zimbabwe internationally. As 2011 begins, the many views fragment or develop internal variations almost as a parallel to the fracturing of the Zimbabwean political landscape. The fissures within ZANU-PF and MDC-Mutambara, the readvent of ZAPU, the lacklustre performance of Morgan Tsvangirai as Prime Minister, and the self-seeking demeanour of elected parliamentarians on all sides, have created an international sense that there is neither predictability nor governmental capacity in the present or near-future Zimbabwe.

Africa has long had its own divided opinions about Zimbabwe and about Robert Mugabe. There is still a surly endorsement among what might be loosely called the ‘African general public’ of Mugabe’s standing up to the West, but this has always been matched by a huge disenchantment with government leadership in all countries. Mugabe may have stood up to the West, but he is as corrupt as any African President and as untrustworthy. Times have marched on in any case. The power-sharing deal brokered by Thabo Mbeki would not have been possible today – and perhaps even yesterday – in West Africa. The somewhat more robust – even if, at time of writing, rhetorical – reaction of ECOWAS to the crisis in Cote d’Ivoire, compared to that of SADC to the stolen Zimbabwean election, is the case in point.

But the West has also moved on. In 2010, elections were patently stolen in both Rwanda and Ethiopia. Electoral majorities in the 90% range are just not credible, especially when opposition leaders disappear and are later found dead. But, for the West, stability and the assurance of no immediate wars in Rwanda and Ethiopia, plus the clear sense that the ruling elites are able to deliver discernible developmental benefits, proved stronger emblems of acceptability than democracy. When ruling elites do not and will not commit themselves seriously to the benefit of citizens, democracy becomes in the second decade of the millennium the scourge with which to whip chosen miscreants. It is selective and Zimbabwe is selected for historical reasons but also because ZANU-PF has clearly no interest in fiscal probity, fiscal transparency, developmental equity, financial dissemination...Read more