Africa Today Seminar: Inflation!? How to revive Zimbabwe’s Economy?

Godfrey Kanyenze is the Director of the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ), a research think tank of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. He is one of the initiators and the current chairman of the Coordinating Committee of the ANSA initiative (Alternatives to Neo-liberalism in Southern Africa), which was formed in response to the World Bank's Structural Adjustment Programme. It seeks to provide alternative policies and strategies for Southern Africa that are aimed at people-driven, sustainable, human development. Godfrey Kanyenze has published widely on the state of Zimbabwe's economy for the ILO, IOM, UNDP and the Zimbabwean government.

Please note that this seminar takes place on Tuesday instead of our regular Thursday.

Discussant: Corrie Roeper (FNV Mondiaal)

PowerPoint presentation Godfrey Kanyenze 

In the first five years after independence Zimbabwe seemed to be the success story of Africa, with enormous progress in the educational, health and agricultural sectors. However today, thirty years after the country's independence, there could hardly be a greater contrast.

In addition to political repression and severe human rights violations, Zimbabwe's economy has collapsed in recent years, deteriorating from being one of Africa's strongest to one of the world's worst. At the height of hyperinflation in 2008, Zimbabwe's inflation rate was at an incredible 89.7 sextillion (1021) percent.

After yet another violent election in 2008, Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai formed a Government of National Unity. In this seminar Kanyenze will provide an overview of the GNU's economic policies and discuss the measures needed for Zimbabwe's hard-hit economy to recover.