Africa’s foremost policy and institutional think tank, IMANI Africa has released a worrying report on state of Zimbabwe that suggests that the African state is a pretty bad state from all sectors after the ousting of the late former president Robert Mugabe.
Read below the report that came in on Thursday, January 2, 2020.
Zimbabwe is not out of the woods- reliable reports point to a deterioration in all aspects of life since the ouster of strong man, Mugabe. It was expected that the first elections since Mugabe was pushed out would begin a new path to prosperity. We haven’t seen any trails of hope.
And yet, ahead of the 2018 presidential elections in Zimbabwe, IMANI’s team virtually took a trip to the country to assess the extent to which the manifesto promises of the ruling Zimbabwean African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) and the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance (MDC Alliance) planned to deal with the challenges Zimbabwe faced.
IMANI’s Manifesto analysis identified the dissonance between policies proposed by the parties to solve the challenges of the country and offered some suggestions on effective implementation of the promises. The analysis covered eight sectors: Economy, Agriculture, Job Creation, Governance, Education, Health, Energy and Infrastructure. In addition to the 2018 manifestos of ZANU-PF and the MDC Alliance, other data sources used included Budget and Economic Statements, World Bank reports and reports by other development agencies.
Critical development challenges facing Zimbabwe within the eight sectors include difficulties in raising revenue, a dominating employment cost, weak expenditure management, poor business environment, corruption and an agricultural sector characterized by problematic land reforms and high post-harvest loses. Further, electricity supply to power industrial growth is inadequate and unreliable. Infrastructure in Zimbabwe is also ageing and has significantly deteriorated. Several promises have been made by the two major political parties to address these challenges in their manifestos.
To put Zimbabwe on a path to recovery, IMANI recommended, that the winning party focus on the following: initiate steps to widen the tax net through economic formalization and efficient addressing systems; provide an enabling environment through a continuous and deliberate reform agenda; streamline land title administration; strictly enforce anti-corruption reforms; increase infrastructure spending in education; rehabilitate and maintain infrastructure by eliminating inefficiencies in infrastructure financing; review the electricity tariff regime in order to sustain businesses and attract investments; and improve the working conditions of healthcare professionals in the country.
You can download the entire report @ https://imaniafrica.org/2018/07/26/imanifesto-zimbabwes-2018-election-an-analysis-of-manifesto-promises/
