Millennial poverty, unemployment and a generation’s future in Zimbabwe

Gibson Nyikadzino

Let me start on a sombre note, and I hope it will end as a reflection that stands to be judged, either way. The original state of people is not poverty, people are pushed into poverty. Zimbabwe’s millennial generation is no exception. The future of the Zimbabwean youth is the most dramatic story that does not even make the news headlines, except for political reasons.

Zimbabwe is on the edge of an economic precipice. The young who are today clamouring for equal opportunities are unmindful that if you want to make poverty history, the first thing is to understand the history of poverty.

Historian Emmanuel Akyeampong remarked: “Poverty, wealth, power, powerlessness are connected.”

It has become a terrifying reflection that in Zimbabwe, people are not poor because they do not have food or they have no rich culture, but their poverty has been created first by grabbing the resources by a few but powerful people.

A score ago, Zimbabwe embarked on a “nationalist” land redistribution exercise that, according to the leaders, was meant to change the fortunes of natives in the agricultural sector and social life in general.

But twenty years later, the poverty currently experienced is deeply linked with the appropriation of land, itself a major economic resource. Using nationalist terminology, biggest “land redistribution” happened in Zimbabwe, while on the other hand it created more poor people.

Since 2000, a new poverty has been created in the hunt of affluence and a new language has been created; cartels and oligarchs. The emerging oligarchs grabbed the land of the people, today they benefit from energy, power and transport deals, they are beneficiaries of the privatisation of state enterprises, are in the agriculture sector.

As the poverty unfolds, the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is slowing, income per capita is pathetic all because productivity has been declining  for 20 years, since the “nationalist land redistribution.” The result; unemployment has been very high and nowhere in Zimbabwe is it pronounced than among the millennial generation ready to join the workforce. 

Poverty and inequality is a twin scourge in the 21^st century, and has become more pronounced in Sub-Saharan African. A lot of  unfortunate scenarios, never witnessed by our ancestors, are by the doorstep.

Zimbabwean youth have been disadvantaged because of the 20 years of declining productivity, slow growth, steep unemployment and increasing inequality since 2000. The economic downturn is fuelling growing discontent towards governing institutions and spawning extreme political views that threaten to disrupt the prevailing order.

In the face of a global COVID-19 pandemic, what are signs that point to the government’s ability to nurture the talents of the young generation and prepare them for the competitive future.

While the ‘government of Zimbabwe’, then and now, never competed in the first and second Industrial Revolutions, how is the leadership harnessing modern infrastructure as a measure on its commitment to provide equal opportunities to millennials and all with innovation?   

While globally today we may be living longer and comfortably, on average, than our forebears, it is frightening to know that 40 percent of the global population that is earning less than two dollars a day is far worse than what our ancestors were before the two industrial revolutions in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

This current industrial era, if not embraced with innovation and rewarding talent, it can create a more profound crisis, a worse generational crisis. Zimbabwe’s 65 percent of the population are youth, that is no longer a myth. What is terrifying about this demography is that it is made up of most brilliant minds that are impoverished by those they look up to.

Inequality of opportunity is certainly one of the many major drivers of poverty among Africa and Zimbabwe’s young generation. The situation we experience today has all to do with the quality of our governance structure.

For example, Zimbabwe in 1996 hosted the first Solar Energy Conference, and unfortunately as a nation we have failed to install renewable energy technology to transform our electricity and transport grids to move the economy. This only requires innovative leaders without a strongman mentality, possessing the willingness to change factors that drove a 21^stcentury economy. 

Where is Zimbabwe’s millennial generation looking to when global economists reveal that “we are looking at small growth and little job opportunities for the next 20 years?”

As German philosopher Walter Banjamin puts it: “The value of information does not survive the moment in which it was new. It lives only at that moment; it has to surrender to it completely and explain itself to it without losing any time.

A story is different. It does not expend itself. It preserves and concentrates its strength and is capable of realizing it even after a long time.”

Zimbabwe’s youth should tell a different story, with time.