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It's amazing how thoroughly has been completely destroyed in the last decade. What I think most first-world readers miss is that Zimbabwe is not one of those (

by wheels 18y ago

It's amazing how thoroughly has been completely destroyed in the last decade. What I think most first-world readers miss is that Zimbabwe is not one of those (previously) ultra-poor, undeveloped countries -- it's had a frighteningly long fall to get to where it is now.

dcurtis 18y ago
Yeah, it used to be considered a model African country, with the highest increases in standard of living year/year of any country in the world. Robert Mugabe destroyed Zimbabwe. Wikipedia has some really excellent further reading on Mugabe and Zimbabwe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Zimbabwe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Zimbabwe
- jwilliams 18y ago
  IIRC, before Land Reform Zimbabwe was the only African country with a net surplus of food. Zim used to be called the bread basket of Africa. Putting aside the ideology of Land Reform (that's a whole other minefield of a topic), the execution and economic policies have been woeful. Another post quoted one issue which was that large tracts of land were broken up, which broke economies of scale. However, it was flawed in a lot of other ways. The original owners of the land were highly captialised. The people receiving the land often had no experience in cultivation, and even if they did, they had zero capital. They couldn't buy seed, machinery, expertise. The money and expertise required to turn this around pretty much fled the country. So large farms that produced vast quantities got broken up into small farms that produce almost nothing. At one stage Zim was in talks with China to have Chinese workers come over and work the land. I don't think that ever came to be, but China is a big player in Zimbabwe still - a lot of tourism, aid, weapons and immigration (several million?) comes from China.
  - wheels 18y ago
    From what I've heard the land distribution was even worse than that -- farms were more often than not given to party hacks rather than poor farmers. The problem seems to largely have been that the land reform wasn't actually an act for social justice so much as a populist political move. Egypt's attempt at land reform seemed much better planned: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_land_reform#Law_Number_178 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_land_reform#Law_Number...
    - jwilliams 18y ago
      Interesting - I hadn't know about that before. Agreed on your other points. I don't know the politics of the Egyptian reform, but colonialism still turns this in to a very complex set of issue. Especially when you try and distinguish between social justice and populist politics. Again, if I recall correctly, in the early days of the land reform the UK pledged funds to allow property to be bought back from land owners. I think they even contributed GBP50 million or something (drop in the ocean admittedly), but the rest of the plan was eventually knocked back.
  - davidw 18y ago
    > The original owners of the land were highly captialised. Err... not to dispute the rest of what you say, which is accurate, but the original owners? I realize you can play that game a long way back in history, but still...
Anon84 18y ago
Getting rid of Mugabe and reinstating private property rights would go a long way in the right direction.
- wheels 18y ago
  It'd be a start, but sadly just that. That's what's truly sad. The economic destruction has been so thorough, the wave of emigration away so massive, that Zimbabwe will need a generation or two to recover.
  - echair 18y ago
    I get the impression a lot of the emigration is pretty permanent. Which means they may never recover, in the sense of recovering the lead they formerly held over other countries in the region.
markessien 18y ago
Hyperinflation is caused by external countries refusing to invest in a countries currency, not by internal factors. So the current problem with money they are having is controlled by external entities.
- ars 18y ago
  I don't think that's correct, but I'll give you chance to post some citations backing that up.
  - markessien 18y ago
    Hyperinflation is caused by a loss of confidence in the ability to exchange the local currency for foreign currencies. The Zimbabwe $ became difficult to change following the land reform exercise, and that started the cycle. Once the cycle starts, it's very difficult to stop. All this has almost nothing to do with the actual economy of the country - many countries have fallen into much worse economic times than Zimbabwe currently is in, and did not have the problem with hyperinflation. In actuality, Zimbabwe belongs to the top African countries in terms of infrastructure, education and production. It still does so, but it's currently under a lot of economic pressure from outside countries, and one of the effects is this hyper-inflation.
    - gravitycop 18y ago
      Zimbabwe belongs to the top African countries in terms of [...] education Zimbabwe does not seem to be listed in the recent TIMSS data. http://nces.ed.gov/timss/table07_3.asp http://nces.ed.gov/timss/table07_3.asp Where are you getting your information from? This TIMSS page shows 1992 reading-score data for 14-year-olds for Nigeria (401), Zimbabwe (372), and Botawana (330): http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d96/d96t402.asp http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d96/d96t402.asp
      - markessien 18y ago
        From the Wikipedia page on Zim: "Zimbabwe has an adult literacy rate of approximately 90% which is amongst the highest in the world." Bob Mugabe may have his faults, but he also took Zimbabwe really far.

by wheels 18y ago

dcurtis 18y ago

Yeah, it used to be considered a model African country, with the highest increases in standard of living year/year of any country in the world. Robert Mugabe destroyed Zimbabwe. Wikipedia has some really excellent further reading on Mugabe and Zimbabwe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Zimbabwe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Zimbabwe

jwilliams 18y ago
IIRC, before Land Reform Zimbabwe was the only African country with a net surplus of food. Zim used to be called the bread basket of Africa. Putting aside the ideology of Land Reform (that's a whole other minefield of a topic), the execution and economic policies have been woeful. Another post quoted one issue which was that large tracts of land were broken up, which broke economies of scale. However, it was flawed in a lot of other ways. The original owners of the land were highly captialised. The people receiving the land often had no experience in cultivation, and even if they did, they had zero capital. They couldn't buy seed, machinery, expertise. The money and expertise required to turn this around pretty much fled the country. So large farms that produced vast quantities got broken up into small farms that produce almost nothing. At one stage Zim was in talks with China to have Chinese workers come over and work the land. I don't think that ever came to be, but China is a big player in Zimbabwe still - a lot of tourism, aid, weapons and immigration (several million?) comes from China.
- wheels 18y ago
  From what I've heard the land distribution was even worse than that -- farms were more often than not given to party hacks rather than poor farmers. The problem seems to largely have been that the land reform wasn't actually an act for social justice so much as a populist political move. Egypt's attempt at land reform seemed much better planned: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_land_reform#Law_Number_178 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_land_reform#Law_Number...
  - jwilliams 18y ago
    Interesting - I hadn't know about that before. Agreed on your other points. I don't know the politics of the Egyptian reform, but colonialism still turns this in to a very complex set of issue. Especially when you try and distinguish between social justice and populist politics. Again, if I recall correctly, in the early days of the land reform the UK pledged funds to allow property to be bought back from land owners. I think they even contributed GBP50 million or something (drop in the ocean admittedly), but the rest of the plan was eventually knocked back.
- davidw 18y ago
  > The original owners of the land were highly captialised. Err... not to dispute the rest of what you say, which is accurate, but the original owners? I realize you can play that game a long way back in history, but still...

Anon84 18y ago

Getting rid of Mugabe and reinstating private property rights would go a long way in the right direction.

wheels 18y ago
It'd be a start, but sadly just that. That's what's truly sad. The economic destruction has been so thorough, the wave of emigration away so massive, that Zimbabwe will need a generation or two to recover.
- echair 18y ago
  I get the impression a lot of the emigration is pretty permanent. Which means they may never recover, in the sense of recovering the lead they formerly held over other countries in the region.

markessien 18y ago

Hyperinflation is caused by external countries refusing to invest in a countries currency, not by internal factors. So the current problem with money they are having is controlled by external entities.

ars 18y ago
I don't think that's correct, but I'll give you chance to post some citations backing that up.
- markessien 18y ago
  Hyperinflation is caused by a loss of confidence in the ability to exchange the local currency for foreign currencies. The Zimbabwe $ became difficult to change following the land reform exercise, and that started the cycle. Once the cycle starts, it's very difficult to stop. All this has almost nothing to do with the actual economy of the country - many countries have fallen into much worse economic times than Zimbabwe currently is in, and did not have the problem with hyperinflation. In actuality, Zimbabwe belongs to the top African countries in terms of infrastructure, education and production. It still does so, but it's currently under a lot of economic pressure from outside countries, and one of the effects is this hyper-inflation.
  - gravitycop 18y ago
    Zimbabwe belongs to the top African countries in terms of [...] education Zimbabwe does not seem to be listed in the recent TIMSS data. http://nces.ed.gov/timss/table07_3.asp http://nces.ed.gov/timss/table07_3.asp Where are you getting your information from? This TIMSS page shows 1992 reading-score data for 14-year-olds for Nigeria (401), Zimbabwe (372), and Botawana (330): http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d96/d96t402.asp http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d96/d96t402.asp
    - markessien 18y ago
      From the Wikipedia page on Zim: "Zimbabwe has an adult literacy rate of approximately 90% which is amongst the highest in the world." Bob Mugabe may have his faults, but he also took Zimbabwe really far.