The mining sector is the leading export sector, with about 40 per cent of earnings. Zimbabwe is, with South Africa, the world’s leading supplier of high-grade chromium ore and nickel. Other minerals include asbestos, coal, iron ore, cobalt, and copper. There was a major expansion in Zimbabwe’s gold production in the 1980s, following the introduction of cheap leaching techniques enabling the recovery of ore from old waste tips.
C Manufacturing
Manufacturing grew rapidly in Zimbabwe after World War II and especially during the period of international sanctions. The leading manufactures include food products, machinery, metal products, textiles, fertilizer, clothing, footwear, chemicals, and alcoholic beverages. Other major manufactures are transport equipment, electrical machinery, mining machinery, pulp and paper products, tobacco products, and pharmaceuticals. Until the late 1980s the sector was predominantly oriented to servicing the domestic economy. However, backed by financial incentives, there was a major drive to increase manufacturing exports at the end of the decade, which met with some success throughout the 1990s, especially regionally.
D Energy
Zimbabwe has considerable hydroelectric power and coal resources. The country gets most of its electric power from the Kariba Dam on the Zambezi River. Coal-fired thermal power stations provide the rest; a large new thermal power station was built in the 1980s near the coalfields at Hwange in the north-west. Total production in 2001 was about 6.7 billion kWh.
E Transport
Zimbabwe has a road network totalling about 91,810 km (57,048 mi) in length. About 70 per cent are improved all-weather roads, including about 19 per cent paved roads. In 1997 there were around 29 passenger cars per 1,000 people. The country is also served by 2,759 km (1,714 mi) of well-maintained railways, with links to Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, and ports on the Indian Ocean in Mozambique. Road and rail connections with Zambia and Mozambique were restored in 1980 following independence. Most of the major towns are served by air transport. There are major international airports at Harare, Bulawayo, and Victoria Falls. Air Zimbabwe is the national carrier.
F Communications
Although the media in Zimbabwe is theoretically free, in practice it is very much state-dominated. The government controls the 2 main daily newspapers. Independent or foreign journalists who refuse to toe the government line have found themselves facing harassment or even expulsion. An Access to Information Bill instigated in December 2001 (see History below) made it increasingly difficult for journalists to operate in the country. A wide variety of periodicals are published. Zimbabwe has national radio and television broadcasting stations based in Harare, with secondary studios in Bulawayo. Independent radio stations find it almost impossible to obtain licences. In 1999 the country had about 4 million radio receivers and 410,000 television sets.
G Currency and Banking
The monetary unit is the Zimbabwe dollar (Z$; formerly known as the Rhodesian dollar), of 100 cents (Z$5,500.4 equalled US$1; early 2005). The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (established 1964) is the central bank and the sole note-issuing bank. The country has the most developed financial services sector in Africa, apart from South Africa, with five commercial and four merchant banks, five finance houses, several discount houses, and a stock exchange. The Zimbabwe Development Bank (1983) is a development finance institution, 51 per cent government owned. The Agricultural Finance Corporation makes advance loans to farmers for seed, fertilizer, and equipment purchases. In 1994 the Zimbabwe dollar was devalued by 17 per cent, and in 1995 IMF assistance was suspended for six months because of the government’s failure to reduce public spending. The currency continues to decline against major world currencies.
H Commerce and Trade
Until 1990 annual export earnings were usually greater than import costs. In 1991 the trade balance shifted into deficit, with export earnings of US$1,760 million and import costs of US$1,800 million. After 1994 the system of strict foreign exchange allocations for imports, inherited from the pre-independence era, was abolished. Although the system had badly inhibited the modernization of existing industry and curtailed the development of new industries (because it was hard for them to get allocations), it had enabled some equilibrium in the trade balance and limited the size of the overall balance of payments deficit. In 2002 there was a trade deficit, with exports earning an estimated US$2,211 million and imports costing US$2,467 million.
The leading exports included tobacco, asbestos, gold, cotton, steel, ferrochrome, nickel, textiles, and meat. Among the major imports were petroleum products, machinery, and transport equipment. The United Kingdom, South Africa, the United States, and Germany are the leading trade partners.
I Tourism
Zimbabwe became one of the fastest-growing African tourist destinations during the 1980s, able to support attractions like the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi and numerous game parks, with a well-developed transport infrastructure and international-class hotels. However, the industry faced a downturn at the end of the 1990s and early 2000s with many prospective tourists being deterred by the worsening political situation. Around 1.87 million visitors a year were recorded in 2000, with receipts amounting to US$110 million.
V GOVERNMENT
According to the April 1980 constitution, amended in November 1987, Zimbabwe is a sovereign republic, and guarantees the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual, regardless of race, tribe, or place of origin.
A Executive and Legislature
Under the 1987 amendment to the constitution, executive authority in Zimbabwe is vested in a president, who is nominated and elected to a six-year term by the members of parliament. The president appoints the vice-president and a Cabinet.
Legislative power in Zimbabwe is vested in the parliament. The Lancaster House pre-independence agreement on the constitution provided for a bicameral body consisting of a 120-seat House of Assembly and a 40-seat Senate; the 20 seats in the House of Assembly reserved for white members under the Lancaster House Agreement were abolished late in 1987. When the agreement on the constitution expired in April 1990, the bicameral parliament was replaced by a new, single-chamber House of Assembly. It comprises 150 members, of which 120 are directly elected; 10 places are reserved for traditional chiefs, 8 are for the provincial governors appointed by the president, and the remainder are for other presidential appointees.
B Political Parties
The two leading political parties were, until December 1987, the ruling Shona-based Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the main, Ndebele-based opposition group, the Patriotic Front-Zimbabwe African People’s Union (PF-ZAPU). After long and, at times, violent, confrontation, they united as ZANU-PF in 1987 and 1988, turning Zimbabwe into a de facto one-party state. In 1996 ZANU-PF formally abandoned its adherence to Marxism-Leninism. A new opposition party, the Zimbabwe Unity Movement, was established in 1989 but faded into obscurity in the early 1990s. In October 1994 the United Party was formed by a merger of the United African National Council, the smallest of the pre-independence nationalist parties, and the Forum Party of Zimbabwe. The other party was ZANU-Ndonga. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvangirai, was founded in September 1999 and is currently the second largest political party with 41 seats in the National Assembly.
C Judiciary
The general common law is Roman-Dutch law as it applied in the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope in 1891, as modified by statute. Statutory provision is made for the application of African customary law by all courts as appropriate. The Supreme Court, which includes a chief justice and four other justices, has original jurisdiction over certain constitutional questions and appellate jurisdiction on all others. It is the final court of appeal. The high court, consisting of 13 judges, has original jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases. In addition, there are regional courts (dealing with only criminal cases), magistrates’ courts, and village and community courts. Mugabe’s regime is notorious for its lack of respect for court rulings, and harassment of court representatives, particularly non-black judges.
D Local Government
For the purposes of local administration Zimbabwe is divided into eight provinces, each administered by a governor appointed by the president.
E Health and Welfare
Upon independence in 1980, Zimbabwe had limited health facilities and government and private social security systems aimed almost exclusively at the white minority. The post-independence government undertook a major programme to improve the health care of the majority of Zimbabweans and to extend the range of social security provision, and the number of people covered. Zimbabwe today has some of the best health-care services in Africa, particularly in rural areas, where more than 1,000 clinics have been established. The infant mortality rate was 23 deaths per 1,000 live births in the early 1990s, compared with 67 per 1,000 a decade earlier. However, it was estimated at 104 per 1,000 in 1995 and 67 per 1,000 in 2004. In 1996 there were 8,517 people per doctor. In 1990, 6.2 per cent of the country’s GDP was spent on health care. AIDS is a growing public health problem, with estimates of over a quarter of all adults infected.
F Defence
In 2002 Zimbabwe’s armed forces totalled about 29,000 personnel, with a paramilitary police force of 21,800 and an air force of 4,000. Some 3,000 Zimbabwean troops were stationed in Mozambique during the civil war there, to keep open Zimbabwe’s important trade corridor along the railway to Beira port. As commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the president has total control over the country’s military. Aid comes from the United Kingdom and South Korea. Although Zimbabwe is not in any formal military alliance, it has lent support to the Mozambique government against the RENAMO guerrillas and also backed the United States during operations in Somalia. It has also been involved in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2002, Zimbabwe spent US$637 million (3.4 per cent of its GDP) on defence.
G International Organizations
Zimbabwe is a member of the United Nations (UN), the African Union, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the South African Development Community (SADC). Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations for a year after the flawed presidential election of March 2002 and left of its own accord in December 2003.
