In Default for 25 Years, Zimbabwe Struggles to Feed Its Citizens

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(Bloomberg) – Over the past quarter of the last century, Zimbabwe has failed to pay $ 21 billion in debt.

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Now, while the country is struggling with the impact of dehydration once in the generation, the ordinary zimbabwean pays the price. A long, dry and dry talisman caused by the ritual phenomenon in the Niwinho phenomenon in South Africa, where crops were shining and leaving 26 million people in seven hungry countries, according to the United Nations World Food Program.

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Zimbabwe was more difficult, with the corn crop decreased by more than two thirds of the previous years. The World Food Program expects that about 7.6 million people will need help in reaching food between now and May.

“We were unable to harvest anything from our field. So watermelon has failed to grow,” Bicksella Dobobi, a four -year -old mother, 32 -year -old, told Rina Gilani, on a visit to the remote rural area in Mapsa. After more than two decades of economic turmoil, many Zimbabwean cannot carry imported foods. The fatigue began among human donors.

This leaves multilateral lenders and development financing institutions as the best hope in the country to feed nearly half of its population. However, unlike other countries-the neighboring Zambia, which has already received one billion dollars from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund for Food Supply Renewal and the electrical energy-based energy system-Zimbabwe is closed from the addition of his debts.

Among Zimbabwe’s creditors are the World Bank, African Development Bank, the European Investment Bank and the Paris Club, all of them refused to provide emergency funds. The International Monetary Fund said it is obligated to the rules that prevent it from providing loans to a country already in relevant organizations.

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“We do not owe to criticize the International Monetary Fund.” “So the expectation was perhaps we could reach some resources.”

“My stay is awake.”

The recent freezing threatens to disburse aid by the United States Agency for International Development by making the situation worse. The US International Development Agency is one of the largest supporters of global food programs in the country, and as of last November, she was also working with UNICEF, the United Nations Fund for Children, on Zimbabwe programs to combat malnutrition.

The history of the economic problems in the country dates back to 2000, when President Robert Mugabe encouraged farmers at the time of the subsistence farmers on the invasion and seizure of thousands of commercial farms owned by white as revenge on land seizures in the colonial era. While this obtained his support in the election year, tobacco and corn production was broken at a later time, which led to the income of exports in the country. The sanctions of the United States and the European Union imposed as a result of land seizures, depths of recession. The main investors withdrew from the country, followed by a lack of food and excessive inflation, and Zimbabwe was left without enough foreign currency to pay its debts.

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Zimbabwe is trying to solve the problem of its debts for years, but has so far paid $ 113 million to the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the European Investment Bank. Since 2021, Zimbabwe has also made a quarterly payments of $ 100,000 for each of the 16 bilateral creditors at Paris Club. He owes that organization at least $ 4 billion.

In 2022, after plans that involve sales of bonds and the benefit of metal resources in the country failed, Zimbabwe’s head of the African Development Bank Akinwunmi Adesina and former head of Mozambican Joachim Chisano recruited to negotiate with creditors. Near the end of last year, Global Sovereign Consulting, a Paris -based consulting company founded by Rothschild & Co. The administration, people familiar with the position Bloomberg said at the time.

While Zimbabwe’s position has some similarities, its crisis is very longer. Zimbabwe has been behind the World Bank for the World Bank for Reconstruction and Development since 2000, while the other country in the same position, Belarus, has not paid its debts since 2022. The Development Association since 2000 while others have not paid, Eritrea and Syria, delays a year ago 2012.

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The World Bank said in response to inquiries, meaning “the country is not eligible to obtain direct IDA or IBRD financing for the government.”

Myanmar is a rare example of a country that comes out of the deadline of debt, according to Martin Kisler, CEO of the Finance Laboratory in Paris Development, which helps African countries to manage debt crises.

In 2013, Myanmar used a bridge loan from Japan to purify nearly one billion dollars of late debt to the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank. The institutions then presented new loans to Myanmar, which used these funds to pay Japan. NCUBE suggested a similar arrangement in an interview with Bloomberg 2019, indicating that a bridge loan from the Group of Seven Industrial Countries can be used to push two multilateral lenders. Nothing comes from this proposal.

During a briefing at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this year, NCUBE expressed her optimism that Zimbabwe may soon find a way out. He said in a discussion episode: “I think that during the Trump era and its time we expect our debt to be dissolved.” No details about how this happened.

Currently, the country has become deep in the so -called “lean season”, and until December, just a quarter of a quarter of a quarter of a dollar that you will need from now until the harvest in May. “We expect perhaps another $ 30 million, but even as soon as we come, we are still in a risky position,” said Barbara Clemens, coach of the World Authority, Zimbabwe, at the time.

This has left millions of Zimbabwe their concern about their next meal – the NCUBE obsession around the debt.

“He divorced the economy,” he said.

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