Zimbabwe

FORMERLY KNOWN AS Southern Rhodesia, the sub-Saharan nation of Zimbabwe is currently experiencing 70 percent poverty and high unemployment rates. Throughout the 1990s, as unemployment rates increased, so did incidences of extreme poverty, particularly among women. Approximately 64.2 percent of the population live on less than $2 a day, and 36 percent subsist on less than $1 per day. Almost 40 percent of the population are malnourished. Income is unevenly distributed in Zimbabwe. The poorest 20 percent possess only 1.8 percent of available resources, while the richest 20 percent claim 55.7 percent. Zimbabwe is ranked 56.8 on the Gini Index of Human Inequality.

Zimbabwe experienced a period of white power in the 1960s that was ended only by United Nations sanctions and a guerrilla uprising. Since 1987, Zimbabwe has had only one president. After President Robert Mugabe initiated a widespread land distribution scheme in 2000, the country was plunged into chaos, experiencing a crippled economy, food and commodities shortages, and an exodus of white farmers. Zimbabwe's current economic woes are partially derived from its involvement in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1998 to 2002. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has suspended aid to Zimbabwe because the government has failed to meet the required budgetary goals.

The Mugabe government has been accused of using brutal repression to stamp out opposition to its policies. In the spring of 2005, in an alleged effort to subdue political unrest and opposition to its policies, the Zimbabwean government “detained” some 30,000 urban residents. The so-called scorched-earth policy led to the burning of homes and street kiosks and mass evictions from shantytowns and other temporary dwellings. Human rights advocates believe that Mugabe is determined to relocate 1.5 million of Zimbabwe's poorest residents to rural areas, where they pose fewer threats to his power.

Some 66 percent of the Zimbabwean population are engaged in subsistence farming, and periodic droughts and the exodus of white farmers have damaged the agricultural sector and curtailed income traditionally derived from the export of agricultural products. Some 400,000 jobs have been lost as a result. Zimbabwe's abundance of natural resources, which include coal, chromium ore, asbestos, gold, nickel, copper, iron ore, and platinum metals, is insufficiently developed to support the floundering economy. Health as well as economic security has been threatened by poor mining practices that have led to toxic waste and heavy metal pollution.

[Page 1210]Life expectancy in Zimbabwe is 36.67 years, with a median age of 19.26 years. Nearly 40 percent of the people are under the age of 14, and 3.7 percent have reached the age of 65. Almost three-quarters of Zimbabweans will never see a 40th birthday. Roughly one-quarter of the Zimbabwean population has HIV/AIDS, which means that close to two million people are living with the disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 2,600 adults and 690 children in Zimbabwe died each week during 2003, bringing the total of HIV/AIDS victims to 73,000. Approximately 800,000 Zimbabwean children have been orphaned by this epidemic. Zimbabweans are also at high risk of developing food- and waterborne diseases that are common to the area. Some 17 percent are without access to safe water, and 38 percent lack access to proper sanitation. Malaria is also a major cause of death. Zimbabwe's healthcare system, which was once considered a model for the region, has essentially collapsed. Zimbabwe has only six physicians per 100,000 residents, and 20 to 80 percent of the people are unable to afford essential drugs.

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