The Arcadia Foundation
http://arcadiafoundation.org/
18 April 2011
We as an international community have a duty in newfound opportunity: we must pay close attention to the booms in present-day Zimbabwe in order for them to respectively blossom in to sustainable pillars of development. We must also accept and address certain realities hindering our ‘getting on-board’.
The Zimbabwean mining sector is expected to grow by 44 percent this year alone, buoyed by an increase in platinum, diamond, coal and ferrochrome output, according to a recent report by Frost & Sullivan.
15 million textbooks were provided to schoolchildren throughout Zimbabwe, thanks in large part to UNICEF and the diligent efforts of the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Senator David Coltart. The ratio of student to textbook is 1:1, a tremendous continent-wide precedent.
Tourism is encouragingly on the rise; there are more and more reasons for the United States and the EU to effectively lift longstanding sanctions. Certainly these will encourage the type of foreign investment the country continues to deserve.
One must however continue to be wary; foreign investment in Zimbabwe has the abysmal geopolitical reputation of Russia regarding the stigma of political corruption and violence, following controversial 2008 elections between the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and President Mugabe, 87, and his Zanu-PF. Political in-fighting continues.
Security reforms initiated by the SADC have yet to be effectively installed. Mugabe’s rhetoric isn’t helping – as of late beset by ill-health and divisions in his party, the President stated the government will ‘take over’ companies, in part through the controversial indigenization act, especially those owned by EU member countries, in response to said sanctions.
The indigenization and empowerment laws alone could adversely affect infrastructural growth; in a time of growing prospects, securing effective political resolution for applicable oversight, addressing and compromising dated campaigns of repatriation and helping to promote the positives emanating from the once-breadbasket of Africa are paramount in order for a globalized community to engage effectively.