Country Information

The population of Zimbabwe is approximately 12.5 million. Zimbabwe is 98% African, with two major ethnic groups Shona 82% and Ndebele 14%, mixed and Asian 1%, and white less than 1%. 50% of Zimbabweans are syncretic (part Christian and part indigenous beliefs), another 25% Christian, 24% indigenous beliefs and Muslim. The government is a republic based on parliamentary democracy.

Political and Economic Environment
Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, a British colony since 1926, became independent in 1980. President Robert Mugabe from the ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front) has been the sole leader of the country since 1987. The main political opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Morgan Tsvangirai challenged Mugabe’s leadership in the 2002 Presidential Elections. Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party won the elections with serious irregularities and voter intimidation, according to international observers. The opposition party, however, prevented a constitutional change which would have given an unlimited office term to the incumbent president.

After the 2004 presidential elections, which are widely suspected of being rigged, the U.S. and the European Union (EU) imposed travel restrictions against senior Zimbabwean officials and embargoed the sale of arms to Zimbabwe. The election process was marred by repressive legislation that limits freedom of speech and assembly. Millions of expatriate Zimbabweans were not permitted to vote. The government used food distributions to influence an increasingly hungry population. Zimbabwe subscribed to the electoral principles of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in 2004, but failed to implement key elements of the principles in advance of the 2005 parliamentary elections.

Zimbabwe, once Africa’s most highly developed economy, is now on the brink of collapse. The government is facing economic problems that are plunging the country into poverty and driving thousands of Zimbabweans to neighboring countries. 70% of Zimbabweans are unemployed. The government’s land reform program has damaged the commercial farming sector, the traditional source of exports and foreign exchange and the provider of 400,000 jobs. An estimated 300,000 people lost their jobs.

Humanitarian Situation
President Mugabe and his ZANU-PF Party continue to deny rights to their citizens. Security forces commit systematic abuses: extrajudicial killing, abduction, torture, and rape. The freedoms of speech and press are limited, and those journalist publishing agencies who engaged themselves in criticizing the government are often jailed. Zimbabwe faces problems with violence against women, child prostitution and trafficking in persons.

In May 2005, the Government began Operation Murambatsvina to free urban areas of alleged illegal housing, business enterprises, and criminal activities. According to UN estimates, 700,000 people have been forcibly evicted from their homes or lost their source of livelihood. 2.4 million people have been affected by Operation Murambatsvina. Zimbabwe has an estimated 250,000 internally displaced people, many of them farm workers, as the result of Government-sponsored political violence, human rights violations, land reform, and economic collapse. Governmental authorities have increasingly restricted access to farming areas making it difficult for the displaced and other vulnerable groups to access humanitarian assistance.

In the last four years, agricultural productivity has fallen sharply due to lack of inputs and inefficient distribution. The humanitarian community estimates that 7.5 million Zimbabweans will be in need of food aid, including 2.9 million of Zimbabwe’s rural population, in 2006. In August 2005 President Mugabe blocked $30 million worth of UN fundraising to provide food and medicine to Zimbabweans hit hardest by the demolitions. Botswana has built electric fences, and South Africa has placed military along the border to stop the flow of thousands of Zimbabweans fleeing to find work and escape political persecution. An estimated 1.5 million Zimbabweans in South Africa are economic refugees that seek work on farms.

Zimbabwe has the world’s fourth highest rate of HIV infection. Almost 25% of Zimbabwe’s 12 million is infected with HIV. Since 1990, the under-five mortality rate has risen 50 % and a child dies every 15 minutes from HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe. As parents die from HIV/AIDS, there are more child-headed households, enlarged families and elderly caring for young children. One in five Zimbabwean children (an estimated 1.3 million) is an orphan.

Updated October 2005