LEAD ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PLAN*
We are living in a modern, highly competitive world where important sources of wealth and economic development are *knowledge*, *capital*
and *innovation*
If we are to become successful in our bids and endeavours to become economically viable, we will have to develop an adequate skills pool and expand the range of available skills. A LEAD government will formulate and implement successful, well-targeted policies on economic development. We are busy identifying projects that contribute to economic development, the skills involved, labour market development, job creation, employment factors and poverty reduction. Without identifying Special Economic Zones for production, resuscitation of Zimbabwe’s economy will remain a dream or an overstated statement.
The vision of the Department of Economic Development must be encapsulated in the vision of National Growth and Development Strategy which requires the country to be:
• A leading emerging market and destination of first choice for investors while retaining and expanding social equity and fair labour standards
• A productive economy with high levels of service, a highly skilled workforce, and modern systems of work organisation and management.
• A society in which there are economic opportunities for all, poverty eradication, income inequalities are reduced and basic services are available to all
• A society in which our people, the most precious resource, are given the opportunity and support to develop to their fullest
potential
• A society that promotes the values of social equity, fairness, and human dignity.
LEAD vision looks into the future of Zimbabwe and endevours to ensure dignity, equity and prosperity to all those who make it their home. In essence, our vision is one of a shared, sustainable, growing, labour-absorbing, globally competitive economy.
Economic development is heterodox, that is it happens in different ways in different countries and regions of the world. The environment and the available skills to develop the environment play an important role.
The positive turnaround of the Zimbabwe economy has created a strong platform for accelerated growth in the next decade, with
an emphasis on achieving higher levels of productive investment, employment creation, exports and productivity reducing cost structures and increasing competition are high priorities for achieving accelerated growth.
LEAD is sending a strong message to all sectors and firms in the economy that there should be increased competition to promote the growth of downstream and value-adding economic activity, which holds the key to a sustainable and job-creating economy.
*Defining the concept of economic development*
Economic development requires improved competitiveness and employment creation across many sectors of the economy.
Economic development is the sustained increase in income of all members of society so as to be free from material want. One aspect of that challenge is to achieve development in an interdependent world, that is a world in which goods, services, people, capital and knowledge flow relatively easily across national borders with large net benefits to economies.
The bottom line for Zimbabwe’s future economic development and prosperity lies in our national ability to master the processes of change and make meaningful progress towards our international competitiveness. Our future success depends, to an increasing extent, on our ability to mobilise more effectively the imagination, creativity, skills and talents of our people. We must become more successful in harnessing knowledge to competitiveness and wealth creation within economic development on local level; that is the Local Economic Development (LED)
LED is a process of identifying and using local resources to create sustainable economic and social development in local areas to assist in;
*1• creating more jobs;*
*2• developing local markets;*
*3• growing small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs);*
*4• addressing poverty;*
*5• ensuring community development.*
There are many stakeholders at local level that participate in local economic development. Local government is one of the major
stakeholders.
The Zimbabwean economy is paralyzed because we are yet to adopt LED and our local government Authorities are more than corrupt there for it is time for people to address corruption in order to adopt local economic development policies.
Economics is the study of how individuals, firms, governments and other organizations within our society make choices and how
those choices determine how the resources of society are used. – (Tshababa)
When our economy is analysed it can be stated that there should be transformation and job creation. The challenge
to Zimbabwe is to obtain greater transformation and growth.
*Sustainable Economic Development*
Sustainable means to support something over time or continuously. There should be progression and growth. Communities that attain social cohesiveness and are stable with viable institutions, sustainable economies and universal access to social amenities will contribute towards economic development Other factors that will contribute are access to social amenities, skilled and knowledgeable people who are equipped to contribute to their own and the nation’s growth and development and the empowerment of all stakeholders.
In Zimbabwe the following could help for sustainability:
*1• Investing in the road and transport system.*
*2• Rehabilitating and Maintaining infrastructure.*
*3• Decentralisation of the industries* Developing industries should adhere to criteria for sustainability to make it viable for all the stakeholders.
*Future Prospects for Economic Growth in Zimbabwe*
Solving the unemployment crisis in Zimbabwe is a challenge of enormous proportions for which neither historical experience nor economic theory or current international practice suggest an obvious or easy solution. Stakeholders need the courage to experiment, along with the hope that mistakes made along the way will eventually be vindicated by success.
Since the Micro-Economic Development Strategy for Zimbabwe and the song Zimbabwe is open for business is an interactive process, as time goes by, all the stakeholders will have the opportunity to improve how they impact on the Provincial roadmap and, by implication, how the MEDS in turn affects their activities.
The MEDS have mostly been about building on a vision articulated by the Provincial Government in conjunction with numerous stakeholders, it gathered information about core economic activities in the all provinces and assessed them in respect of their potential contribution to the aims and objectives of this strategy.
Making the analysis in public allows all stakeholders to familiarize themselves with what goes on in these sectors that currently account for the bulk of output and employment, and which strategies key actors in these sectors pursue. This is the first step towards reducing uncertainty about collective performance of actors in the region which in itself enhances its innovative potential and is especially helpful when economic change is rapid or mainly takes place in complex activities associated with the knowledge economy.
Collective endeavours such as MEDS pre-suppose that stakeholders take each other seriously and have a measure of trust in each other’s actions. In the beginning a great deal of explaining, motivating and coaxing on the part of the Provincial Government will be required, and an appropriate institutional and organisational framework will need to be devised to make this possible.
To be sure, the onus is equally on business. Leaders from the business community in all the provinces should engage and find solutions to the complicated socio-economic challenges facing their Province, regardless of whether their individual company is directly affected by poverty, unemployment, and other forms of economic exclusion in the short term because we are all affected in the long term.
Rising to the challenge is about securing our joint future. Business leaders should seek dialogue with government. The regional economy in all provinces is expected to catch up with Zimbabwe’s economic recovery over the short term.
Prospects vary, inter alia, depending on the direction of the RTGS exchange rate and/or business adjustment to the new macro-economic parameters, as well regional policy support.
The growth in Harare service industries is projected to equal or exceed the national performance and a more competitive exchange rate should allow for a firmer recovery in the Provinces manufacturing sector, as well as the agricultural sector on the assumption of normal climatic conditions.
Malvine Marange
LEAD National Spokesperson
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