International community is failing Zimbabwe

A few weeks ago I wrote on the need for Zimbabwe’s coalition partners to act against Robert Mugabe’s intransigence. In it I said that if Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur Mutambara are to be taken seriously they need to take decisive action. I still believe that these two gentlemen need to do more in ensuring that the terms of the Global Political Agreement are adhered to but I think the international community and the international financial institutions are letting Zimbabwe down. For the international community to demand comprehensive change without supporting the efforts of the fledgling government to make life better for ordinary Zimbabweans is unrealistic. Ordinary people need to see how this agreement is benefiting them not how it is benefiting the leaders.
The argument that the international community is helping Zimbabweans by giving them food aid is at best naïve and at worst condescending. Zimbabweans are a proud people who do not want to live on handouts and so to think that all they want is food aid is wrong. While there is a large part of the population that needs food aid there is another large part that wants the country to start working again. These people want to have reliable electricity, clean water, teachers in schools, doctors and nurses in hospitals as well as a functioning monetary system. One has to understand that while Zimbabweans are political and economic refugees around the world they have never relied on handouts. If anything, the complaint against Zimbabweans in South Africa and other parts of the world has been that they are taking local jobs both menial and professional. Zimbabweans have a culture of work and do not shy away from doing jobs that are below them in order to earn a living. Here in the UK I know professionals (ex accountants, teachers, bankers, etc) working in warehouses and in care because they do not want to be on social benefits. There are people in Zimbabwe who have continued to make the best of a bad situation by working hard and finding new and creative ways of fending for their families. These are the people who are not benefiting from the current support being given to Zimbabwe. They need support that drives economic growth rather than support that drives consumption without production. They want their industries, mines and farms to start producing again.
If Zimbabweans that are putting pressure on the South African social and economic infrastructure are to return home there is need for more than food handouts. They need the guarantee that they will be able to feed their families not from food handouts but from the sweat of their brow. I am not the first one to suggest the re-thinking of how support is given to Zimbabwe. It is important for the international community to keep pressure on Mugabe but at the same time relieve pressure on the economy. We need to adopt a double edged approach where on one side we maintain targeted sanctions while on the other hand we give targeted support to Zimbabwe’s economy. There is need for money to pay for public services such as education, health and infrastructural development. We need bilateral and multilateral agreements to provide support for these services even if the support is directly targeted. One way is to provide direct aid to institutions. The state hospitals, schools and universities would benefit from direct investment in equipment and infrastructure. Where possible, support could be given for the payment of salaries to critical public servants such as doctors, teachers, nurses, etc. This will ensure that the essential services are back on track. I am sure I speak for all Zimbabweans when I say the support that we need should be money that our country will pay back. We are one of the few countries in the world that has continued to make some sort of payments to IMF and World Bank despite there being no balance of payments support.
I understand that there are concerns that the money can be diverted to pay for Mugabe’s underhand activities hence the need to ensure that the agreements are water tight. I suggest that donors refuse to provide funds through traditional channels. I believe that Zimbabweans running these key public service ministries will use the funds correctly but if it will assuage the international community’s suspicion then they should be safeguards built into the agreements to ensure compliance. I am sure Minister Biti and others in government are willing to give up some control to ensure that the funds start flowing. Once the economy starts working and people start earning enough to buy from businesses then economic growth will be inevitable.
I also think that the demand that Zimbabwe, a country virtually on its knees, should pay what it owes before getting more aid funds from the Bretton Woods institutions is absurd. If the intention is to stimulate growth and to ensure that Zimbabwe can meet its international obligations then the IMF and World Bank are going about it in a wrong way. The best way to ensure that Zimbabwe pays what it owes is to help it to emerge from the economic abyss. Refusing to give aid will only make the Zimbabwe economy worse and reduce chances of Zimbabwe ever paying back what it owes. From a personal banking perspective I have known banks to offer people loans to pay off their credit card debts and to consolidate their debts. I think this is the approach the IMF and World Bank should adopt with Zimbabwe. It may not be the most prudent but it certainly is better than the current approach for both the lender and the debtor. Zimbabwe needs support now and the longer we take to support the country the higher the risk that some people will choose the war route.In my blog on the 11.4.09 (http://www.thoughts.com/GTNGidi/blog/it-is-now-time-to-act-268752/) I wrote about credibility being a finite commodity. The current situation is not helping anyone. In fact I think it is directly responsible for the hardening stance being adopted by Mugabe. Although this stance is clearly stupid it is an expected reaction. The international friends of the democratic movement in Zimbabwe are not doing the movement any favours by not giving the unity government financial aid. Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara are fast losing credibility because months into this agreement there is very little to show. The international community should not allow Tsvangirai and Mutambara to fail. Tsvangirai is on record for saying that Zimbabweans should not be punished for choosing to work with Mugabe when no other option, except for war, was available. The desire to get Mugabe should not cloud our vision for the future. The international community should deal with Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe is not Mugabe. For all his political troubles his children are not starving, they are not drinking unclean water or facing the possibility of not attending school because teachers are threatening to strike. The world should think about those children whose parents cannot afford to take them to private hospitals and schools; those children whose parents can never dream of leaving the country. It is for these people that the decisions by the international community and international institutions need to be reviewed. If Tsvangirai loses credibility then Zimbabwe will be back where we were before this agreement with two unpopular politicians leading Zimbabwe. While the western governments believe they are helping Zimbabweans by refusing aid to the new government the reverse is actually true. I hope Minister Biti is making this clear to the people he is meeting during his visit to the economic capitals of the world. He needs to make this message clear to America, Britain, EU and other world governments that the patience of Zimbabweans with their government has been severely tested and that it may actually break. Give us the money and you will see how creative Zimbabweans are. Zimbabwe has the skills and the technical know-how to drive economic growth but the engine of the economy needs to be helped to come to life through the injection of funds.