Economy of Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's internal transportation and electrical power networks are adequate; nevertheless, maintenance has been ignored for several years. Zimbabwe is crossed by two trans-African automobile routes: the Cairo-Cape Town Highway and the Beira-Lobito Highway. Poorly paved highways connect the major urban and industrial areas, while rail lines controlled by the National Railways of Zimbabwe connect Zimbabwe to a vast central African railroad network that connects it to all of its neighbors.

The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority is responsible for providing the country with electrical energy. Zimbabwe has two larger facilities for the generation of electrical power, the Kariba Dam (owned together with Zambia) and since 1983 by large Hwange Thermal Power Station adjacent to the Hwange coal field. However, total generation capacity does not meet the demand, leading to rolling blackouts. The Hwange station is not capable of using its full capacity due to old age and maintenance neglect. In 2006, crumbling infrastructure and lack of spare parts for generators and coal mining lead to Zimbabwe importing 40% of its power, including 100 megawatts from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 200 megawatts from Mozambique, up to 450 from South Africa, and 300 megawatts from Zambia.In May 2010 the country's generation power was an estimated 940MW against a peak demand of 2500MW.Use of local small scale generators is widespread.

Agriculture in Zimbabwe can be divided into two parts: commercial farming of crops such as cotton, tobacco, coffee, peanuts and various fruits, and subsistence farming with staple crops, such as maize or wheat.<br>Commercial farming was almost exclusively in the hands of the white minority until the controversial land redistribution program began in 2000. Land in Zimbabwe was forcibly seized from white farmers and redistributed to black settlers, justified by Mugabe on the grounds that it was meant to rectify inequalities left over from colonialism.[41] The new owners did not have land titles, and as such did not have the collateral necessary to access bank loans.The small-scale farmers also did not have experience with commercial-scale agriculture.

As other southern African countries, Zimbabwean soil is rich in raw materials, namely platinum,coal, iron ore, and gold. Recently, diamonds have also been found in considerable deposits. Copper, chromite and nickel deposits also exist, though in lesser amounts. The Marange diamond fields, discovered in 2006 are thought to be among the richest in the world.

The state of education in Zimbabwe affects the development of the economy while the state of the economy can affect access and quality of teachers and education. Zimbabwe has one of Africa's highest literacy rates at over 90%.The crisis since 2000 has, however, diminished these achievements because of a lack of resources and the exodus of teachers and specialists to other countries. Also, the start of the new curriculum in primary and secondary sections has affected the state of the once strong education sector.