Rebuilding Zimbabwe: Encouraging Economic Development and Entrepreneurship

Having taken my family to Zimbabwe for visits on numerous occasions, my wife and I were saddened to see the country in chaos, with hundreds of thousands living in asylum, fearful of returning to their beautiful nation.

The Zimbabwean whom I met in Mozambique were good representatives of their nation, even in forced exile. A number of the teachers are interested in setting up English language schools that would be quite helpful to upgrade the potential to attract tourist from non-Portuguese speaking countries. One of the problems they were encountering was not being able to work with their temporary residence status, even work that would improve the capacity of the Mozambican state to attract non-English speaking tourist.

Readers on this platform have mentioned not so positive experiences with tourism in their country. They felt that only the wealthy were able to take advantage of the financial benefits. While I understand that dynamic, I also know that citizens need to be involved in the economic development of their own communities. How can you get involved, and share in the wealth creation? This is a question which needs to be asked.

How will the citizens of Zimbabwe be able to reconcile their differences, and come together to rebuild their society? I would like to hear about current conditions there, and how people are able to set up their own business and get started. What problems do you encounter to keep a business running?