Introduction
Since independence, the government has come up with so many economic blueprints including: Growth with Equity (1981); Transitional National Development Plan (1982-85); 1st Five Year National Development Plan (1986-90); Economic Structural Adjustment Programme – ESAP (1991-1995); Zimbabwe Programme for Economic and Social Transformation – ZIMPREST (1996-2000); Millennium Economic Recovery Programme – MERP (2000); Ten Point Plan, with an emphasis on agriculture (2002); National Economic Revival Programme – NERP (2003); Macroeconomic Policy Framework (2005–2006): ‘Towards Sustained Economic Growth’; Expansionary Monetary Policies (2003–2008); National Economic Development Priority Programme – NEDPP (2007); the Zimbabwe Economic Development Strategy (ZEDS) which was supposed to run from 2008-2013; the Short-term Emergency Recovery Programme (STERP) (2009); the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation – ZIMASSET (2013-2018); the Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper – IPRSP (2016-2018).
The Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) was launched on 5 October 2018, and is running from October 2018 – December 2020. The focal areas of the TSP include: stabilising the macro-economy, and the financial sector; introducing necessary policy, and institutional reforms, to transform to a private sector led economy; and launching quick-wins to stimulate growth. The TSP is underpinned by the Vision 2030, ‘Towards an Upper Middle-Income Country.’
The Zimbabwean economy has been adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic through a number of channels which include: disruptions in trade which have affected the capacity of the country to import raw materials, decline in tourist arrivals, decline in commodity prices, and diversion of government resources to fight the outbreak would reduce funds available for key development priorities. Zimbabwe has a huge contingent of the diaspora population, and remittances are going to be affected. Foreign direct investment inflows are also going to be affected. The World Bank projects that the Zimbabwean economy will shrink by -10 percent in 2020 (World Bank, 2020).
Source: Labour and Economic Development Research Institute Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ)
Download full document here (3.6MB PDF)
