Regime Survival: Poverty Creation, Mass Migration and Elite Enrichment

Abstract

The authors show how, in the face of worsening employment conditions, an growing humanitarian emergency and increasing political repression, large numbers of Zimbabweans fled the country, while others were able to enrich themselves amidst increasing destitution. They analyse the consequences for state fragility as capacity drained out of the public sector and the quality of planning and service delivery deteriorated. Simpson and Hawkins examine how the private sector was also not able to shield itself from the increasingly unpredictable monetary and fiscal policies pursued by Government, and was likewise crippled by the mass migration of skilled and semi-skilled workers. The chapter also looks at the increasingly important role played by diaspora remittances in sustaining the livelihoods of those who remained.