Ideas about how Zimbabwe can have sustainable socio-economic development

I made an unbiased assessment of the economic landscape in Zimbabwe and came up with my own ideas about what I think is the best way forward for Zimbabwe to achieve sustainable socio-economic development without relying too much on donor funding. Sustainable growth will arrive by way of debt destruction rather than credit creation and we don't get out of the debt dependency trap by creating more debt, we do so by learning to be self reliant. Let us not forget that the underlying problem is that we don't have enough government savings to support sound lending. A balanced economy needs a savings pool commensurate with its debt pool. Any solution that deviates from that equilibrium will lower the standard of living for our children. It took years to deplete our collective fortunes and it will take years of saving, coupled with painful debt destruction, to establish a stable foundation for economic growth.

The Zimbabwe coalition government inherited a collapsed economy that was just starting to show signs of recuperating, thanks to the introduction of the US dollar and the Rand as a form of currency. After many years of corruption, reckless spending as well as conspicuous consumption and mismanaged ineffective policies in the Zanu PF government as well as sanctions the country needs a lot of money for it to be rebuilt. The treasury doesn't have the money needed to fund the rebuilding projects and since most international donors seem to be reluctant to help, the country is left with not much option but to be self-reliant. We as Zimbabweans are at a societal inflection point, one where each of us must be accountable for what each one of us will do to rebuild our nation and how we do it. While many of us weren't responsible for the hole in which we find ourselves, pointing fingers and placing blame will do little to dig us out of it. We, the people of Zimbabwe, must offer a collective "mea culpa" if we hope to regain respectability on a global stage. There aren't any magic pills mind you, but humility, diplomacy and cooperative intelligence are intuitive starting points on the road to redemption.

Zimbabwe is blessed with abudant resources but their value has been squandered not through natural disasters but through human error, greed and corruption. If all those abudant resources that the country has were to be harnessed and utilised towards the development of the country, there is no good reason why Zimbabwe would not be able to be self-reliant and generate wealth. Our greatest opportunity lies in maximising our resources, both human and natural and making sure that they work at both an individual and community level. The success of Zimbabwe in becoming self-reliant depends on the full utilisation of its resources as well as the building of business relationships and partnerships of value that are equitable and sustainable not only locally but also continentally as well as in the global village.

One of Zimbabwe's greatest challenges remains corruption and individualistic attitudes. Investors crave legal certainty and to provide it Zimbabwe needs to crack down on corruption and improve Zimbabwe's justice system. The individualistic attitudes that I am talking about are that sense of selfishness which some call a sense of self-preservation that makes it immpossible to build effective teams that put aside individual interests so as to work together torwards the common goal of the team. Such individualistic attitudes can work against the aim to be a self reliant country. For Zimbabwe to be able to be self-reliant all its stakeholders need to work together harmoniously as a team like bees. Therefore there is need for Zimbabweans to get rid of real or imagined jealous around who develops and who does well, supporting instead those that do well and sharing lessons learnt. As one big Zimbabwean team working towards being self-reliant, let us fight against negative competition and jealousy so that we don't work against each other and instead work together. However the greatest of all challenges that Zimbabwe faces is Mugabe and his Zanu PF party's reluctance to embrace democratic principles. China gets away with practising communism and not being alienated internationally for doing that because it has become a formidable force to reckon with in terms of economic advancement such that powerful countries like the USA depend on borrowing money from it to sustain their American lavish lifestyles. Who would dare bite the hand that feeds the self? Communist practices in Zimbabwe of repressing the opposition through the arms of an unfair police force and an unfair justice system will never be tolerated by the world because Zimbabwe is not as powerful as China is. Mugabe and his Zanu PF party need to realise that to the rest of the world Zimbabwe is just one insignificant drop in a global ocean that needs to comply to a decent political ideology for it to be accepted and helped to grow in the global village. If Mugabe and his Zanu PF party were to allow the full democratisation of Zimbabwe, international donors would definately be very willing to bail out Zimbabwe from its financial woes. Could somebody please hammer the goodness of democracy into the heads of Mugabe and his Zanu PF party so that they appreciate it as a better political ideology to adopt than communism.

Science and technology presents another challenge as this backbone is essential for the development of infrastructure and so needs be a focus area. Universities should play a big role in addressing this challenge just as they should be integral in fostering home-grown industries. Zimbabwe needs more small, medium and micro enterprises(SMMEs) for it to be able to address its development issues and move away from the dependency trap. SMMEs are important for the survival of a self-reliant population and the creation of opportunities for employment and innovation in Zimbabwe. Empirical research demonstrates that well conceived SMMEs have a chance of making significant contributions to the development of countries. Even though their business operations might be small, SMMEs are often the largest employment creators in the economy. Amongst the challenges facing Zimbabwe is job creation and business innovation and if SMMEs are properly conceived, funded and supported, they can make a significant contribution in addressing these two issues. SMMEs can address the development challenges facing Zimbabwe if they are taught effective and efficient ways of running their businesses. That is were academic institutions and universities come in, they should be utilised to develop the skills and knowledge of those individuals who run SMMEs. Universities should be encouraged to develop special programs to support SMMEs. It is imperative that Universities in the country should play a major role in educating effective business methods relevant to the development challenges facing Zimbabwe if SMMEs are to be made relavant to economic growth. In line with that point Universities should study SMMEs and share their research outputs with the SMMEs. The Universities should conduct experiments that lead to the establishments of small enterprises that are successful from a product point of view, so that consumers out there can be encouraged to support SMMEs. The challenges that face SMMEs include the knowledge, skills and information that can lead to them becoming innovative and effective in their daily business. If these issues can be systematically addressed by Universities, it will assist SMMEs to evolve from being small to becoming major contributors to local, continental and global markets. SMMEs have an important role to play in contributing to advancing economic development in Zimbabwe and the onus is on the coalition government to give them all the support that they need to grow. SMMEs are the key to the country growing economically to the extent that it becomes self-reliant.

Zimbabwe's challenges are unique and as such international models can not just be imposed on to the local environment like what the IMF usually insists on doing when they offer an African country some loan. We need to apply international best practices, but look internally for solutions. A definite need exists to nurture indigenous knowledge and then develop it and support it with international constructs. In Zimbabwe there is need to use knowledge to address the nation's development challenges by tapping into what is known and modifying it to provide solutions that fit the unique Zimbabwe situation. Both MDC parties that joined Zanu PF to form a coalition government are devoid of effective ideas and strategies that can address Zimbabwe's developmental challenges with minimum if not zero international donor funding and we would be great fools if we rely on Zanu PF whose government brought us this far in the doldrums. So the answer to our developmental challenges lies in the Zimbabwe coalition government setting up a knowledge management organisation which provides an opportunity to intergrate and manage better what knowledge exists in the country and where lacking, to develop new knowledge. The establishment of a knowledge mobilisation initiative whose aim is to address Zimbabwe's development challenges such as lack of access to basic services, inability to feed its populations and a poor governance record is the answer to the country's problems. This knowledge management organisation will serve as a platform for knowledge dissemination and exchange amongst Zimbabwean stakeholders, including policy makers, researchers, donors, academics, sector professionals in the public and private sector as well as not for profit organisations. This initiative should consist primarily of knowledge networks, research and co-operation in the focus areas of accountability and public participation in governance, water and energy service delivery, technology and indigenous knowledge systems and agricultural food security, land and agrarian reform. Internationally, it is well recognised that corporate society is on the verge of a new horizon in which intellectual capital is rapidly becoming the new currency. In this context, the question of implementing a knowledgement management way of doing things in Zimbabwe becomes one of paramount importance to enable the country to align more closely to global trends. The knowledge management organisation has got to aim to serve as a leading change agent for sustainable socio-economic development in Zimbabwe. Its strategic vision should not only be knowledge management but should also include the creation of smart partnerships, innovation and entreprenuership, black economic empowerment and the broadening and deepening of the development impact in Zimbabwe. It should be able to align strategy, structure, culture and processes for it to be able to achieve a Zimbabwe free of poverty and inequity, a Zimbabwe whose citizens are all mobilised and empowered to cause an economic turnaround based on self-reliance and not on donor funding. Success in the economic development of Zimbabwe largely depends on such a knowledge management organisation being set up by the coalition government, so that principles and tools to increase efficiency and productivity can be formulated and disseminated amongst relevant stakeholders. The fact that the knowledge management organisation has to incorporate academics and development practitioners that have to come up with solutions on the ground will ensure that Zimbabwe mitigates its major weakness of coming up with very intelligent solutions in theory which it then fails to implement. The success of this knowledge management initiative largely depends on how willing the participants are to share their knowledge with each other and how sensitised they are to the role they have to play in getting it out to others in a form that is understandable to all. Those who are reluctant to share knowledge and information should understand that knowledge is different from other consumables that get used up when shared. By sharing knowledge it multiplies, it doesn't diminish, so Zimbabewans need to stop seeing knowledge as their own personal asset that needs to be protected, they need to see the immense benefit of a communal knowledge base, through this knowledge management organisation that I am proposing for the Zimbabwean coalition government to set up. It should be noted that money alone is not going to solve Zimbabwe's problems, the money would need to be spent effectively and knowledge management will provide Zimbabweans with the capacity to absorb and disburse any funding it gets to create sustainable socio-economic growth. Knowledge management will support funding with knowledge.

Lastly I want to point out that while saving is an intuitive individual solution, it's the death knell of an economic ecosystem measured by the sum of its parts and reliant on the velocity of money. So the Zimbabwean coalition government should encourage people to save money while rewarding productivity in the private sector. This includes allowing interest rates to rise to reward savers, drastically reducing government spending, investing tax dollars in education and passing tax cuts that rebuild the socioeconomic system from the inside out. While this approach is a bitter pill to swallow, most medicine is, it is the only sustainable path. Remember, we're at a critical crossroads, one that will leave an indelible impression on world history. It's not often you get a second chance at making a good impression. Given how high the stakes are, the onus is on us to stand together as citizens of Zimbabwe in social partnerships, in a knowledge management organisation , as SMMEs and simply at our different work places to affect that positive change, one step at a time until we get there.

Zimbabwe: My objective opinion concerning the current affairs in the country.

I have been asked by some international respectable person whom I promised not to name to give my objective opinion concerning the current happennings in Zimbabwe and I did so. He was interested in knowing why I wasn't giving the Ray Bennet case as much space on my blog as other Zimbabwean online media and bloggers are doing. Here is a summary of what I said.

While every other journalist and blogger was reporting about the arrest of Roy Bennet
on the day that he was supposed to be sworn as the deputy minister of agriculture I chose to be different and instead dwell on Zimbabwean development issues. It's not that I am not concerned about the plight of Roy Bennet, Jestina Mukoko and all those other MDC activists who are in jail but I refuse to be part to calls to free these people just because everyone is saying so when I have no proof that the charges being laid against them do not hold water in a court of law. I am not well-versed in matters of the law and so I prefer to leave such issues to policemen, lawyers and judges who are trained to deal with such issues. It's not for me to act the judge and the jury and come up with my own verdict and then splash it all over my blog as the truth of the matter. I prefer to write about the real truth not what I think is the truth or what I want to be the truth and I am no prophet so I will not write about any predictions I make up in my head. I am also against the obstruction of justice and if Mugabe or Tsvangirai or any politician intervene by giving a command that these activists be released without being tried for whatever charges laid against them I will interpret that as obstruction of justice which is the worst form of corruption which I condemn and besides it would set a bad precedent in the coalition government. I long to see a Zimbabwe where justice is applied to everyone irrespective of whether he/she is a member of MDC or ZANU PF echelons of power. I am however against the inhuman treatment these MDC activists are being subjected to whilst they are in jail, especially the fact that they are being denied the medical treatment that they crucially need and would want to see Tsvangirai, MDC supporters and all human rights activisits making a lot of noise about that issue. I hope Tsvangirai is going to speed up ensuring judicial independence in the country's justice system so that MDC activists can be tried fairly without any hidden political agendas swaying the course of justice.

I personally think it will be wrong for the MDC to pull out of the coalition government because of the cases of the MDC activists who are in jail because they are such a very small percentage of the population compared to the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans who are languishing in poverty caused by the political and economic instability in the country and are depending on this coalition government to save them from drowning in the poverty and dying. There are some who are of the opinion that the MDC should have totally refused to form a marriage with Zanu PF and waited out patiently for Zanu PF to concede to democracy. I love democracy and actually think it is a heaven sent political ideology whose goodness knows no bounds and I long to see it properly applied in Zimbabwe but the suffering in Zimbabwe had reached a critical point and it would have been inhuman for the MDC to continue running after democracy endlessly without coming up with an immediate solution to eliminate the suffering in the country. I applaud them for putting the pursuit of democracy on hold for now as they form a coalition government which gives them room to provide a solution for the suffering masses in Zimbabwe who were in danger of dying either from cholera, hunger or lack of hospital treatment. How can you tell a sick person who has death knocking on his door that he has to wait for an unspecified time period for democracy to come and heal him? How can you tell a child crying because of hunger that she has to wait for democracy to come and end her hunger? She will obviously ask you if democracy is something she can eat. This goes to explain why I think it was a good idea to put democracy aside for now and concentrate on solving the problems of the suffering Zimbabweans through the coalition government. I am sure you will all agree with me that humanity is more important than any political ideology.

There are many different groups of people who who are not happy with this coalition government and would want to see it fail not because it is bad as such but because its success will completely mess up their comfort zones. Yes, you read right, I wrote comfort zone there because there are many who were taking advantage of the chaos in Zimbabwe and using it for their own personal gain. Allow me to talk about these different groups of people.
1.) Some Zimbabweans who had applied for political or economic asylum in foreign lands and had become established in those lands and now run the risk of being send back home if the governments of those foreign lands get convinced that the coaltion government has brought political and economic stability into Zimbabwe.
2.) The corrupt, unethical and unprofessional people who were making money through the loopholes that the chaos in the country had created. Let me give examples.
i) Business people who had gone into the habit of exploting customers with unjustified and abnormally high prices of their goods and services.
ii) Bankers and foregn currency dealers who had gotten into the habit of conning people off their hard currency by luring them with abnormally high bank transfer foreign currency exchange rates of money that the conned would fail to access from their bank accounts once it's deposited there because of the very low bank maximum withdrawal per person per day.
iii) Fuel sellers who had gotten into the habit of raising the cost of fuel willy-nilly without regard of whether the price of petrol had fallen the world over or not.
3.) All those people the world over who hate Mugabe with a passion. The man created so many enemies through his dictatorship tendencies and his human rights abuses, his land grabbing exercise that saw farms being taken away from white farmers and being given to blacks. True the way the land was grabbed without any compensation was bad but Tony Blair is as much to blame for that as Mugabe is. The media the world over chose to ignore Tony Blair's part in the whole mess and set out on an intensive campaign to demonise Mugabe. So now there is a large group of people who don't understand how a democratic leader like Tsvangirai can decide to form a coalition government with such a demon.
4.)Members of Zimbabwean parties that are not part of the coalition government. MDC's agreement to form a coalition government with Zanu PF has increased his popularity among Zimbabweans because they interpret it as putting their needs above his own need for unshared power. It is this popularity that opposition parties are trying to counter by talking and wrting bad things about the coalition government.
I am not a supporter of any of the three parties in the coalition government but I choose to be objective and write about true facts as they happen and not what I think or wish would happen to the coalition government so that the party I support can then come into the lime light.
5.) The security service chiefs who head the army, airforce, police and the intelligence organisation have been reported to be against the coalition government. It has been reported that instead of doing their duty to the country without aligning themselves to any leader like what every civil servant should do they had long back come out in the open that they would not salute Tsvangirai and so now with Tsvangirai as the Prime Minister they are feeling very uncomfortable.

This is my objective opinion of what is happenning in Zimbabwe at the moment. I am irritated with the way Ray Bennet's arrest is hindering the start of working torwards the rebuilding of our country. By now the sworn ministers should have covered ground in analysing the situations in their different minstries, brainstorming and galvanising ideas so that they come up with strategies to cause paradigm shifts that result in sustainable development in this country.