In past agricultural shows in Zimbabwe exhibitors have showcased raw agricultural products straight from the farm. However very few of us ever knew that there are amazing value addition initiatives taking place in the remote rural places like Lower Guruve, Murehwa, Mutoko and others. The Processed Products Fair, the first of its kind held at the Harare Show Grounds on the 14th of July 2010 opened a new page in history. With traditional mbira music playing in the background, people mingled looking at the traditional goods that were on sale.

The show was organized by Zimbabwe Adding Value to Sustainable Produce (ZAVSAP), a coalition of nine Local Non Governmental Organizations that spearhead the introduction and training of value addition initiatives in the rural parts of Zimbabwe. Some of the organizations that showcased brilliant products include the Community Technology Development Trust (CTDT), Lower Guruve Development Association (LGDA), Caritas Zimbabwe, and Cluster Agricultural Development Services (CADS) among others.

Mr. Thomas Pouppwz, the ZAVSAP Communications Facilitator explained that his organization is a coalition of organizations that work largely in Mashonaland provinces to ensure food security. The network comes up with initiatives like workshops, training and scholarships. The network discovered that Zimbabwe has a lot of potential but its agricultural goods are being sold unprocessed.

He explained that the fair’s purpose is to show what is happening out in the rural areas, and market the products. One interesting move is the invitation of other NGOs and businessmen who might make deals with farmers so that the products may be sold on a larger scale.

Memory Rusike a farmer who works with CTDT expressed great interest in the project of producing traditional vegetables. She explained that these vegetable are very helpful to people that are living with AIDS. She confidently explained the process of drying the vegetables using a locally invented solar drier. Memory encouraged young children to stop looking down upon traditional vegetables, which she said, keep people healthy.

Ms. Muslin Fusire, one of the Programme Managers for CTDT, explained that the organization noticed that the traditional vegetables were fast becoming extinct despite their being more nutritious than the exotic ones. As a result the organization started to promote the production, utilization and commercialization of traditional vegetables. Ms Fusire feels encouraged that men are also coming aboard the venture, which is usually called “a women’s business”. Commenting on the impact that the project has had on people, she indicated that the benefits have been both economic and nutritional.

Mr. Sherperd Kamudyariwa, a bee farmer from Lower Guruve Developmemt Association, explained how he produces products from honey. His range of products include wax, mosquito repellent jelly as well as honey.

Lillian Machivenyika, from Cluster Agricultural Development Services (CADS) explained that her organization operates in Mashonaland East and Mashonaland Central. She said CADS works with community-based organizations in teaching farmers how to produce crops and further process them. CADS have also published a recipe book that contains all the information on how some products are produced and further processed.

In Zimbabwe today it is encouraging that rural people are getting this support to add value to their products. Of worry is the fact that the projects seem to be largely NGO driven. The government is called upon to intervene and cooperate in this endeavor, which has the potential to see the farmers of traditional foods making a mark on both the local and global market. It is our great hope that the Processed Product Fair will become an annual event and will also draw international attention.

Mr Tsvangirai, the food situation in Zimbabwe is “not pleasing” because of Zanu PF’s land reform programme. NGOs in Zimbabwe wouldn’t have so much work to do if our country hadn’t been so screwed up by politicians. The way to “ensure food security” is to let Zimbabwean farmers farm the land. Instead we’re being fed by the West. Aapparently we’re a liberated country – go figure.

Addressing delegates to the 2010 Zimbabwe National Nutrition Survey last week, PM Tsvangirai said it was Government’s responsibility to tell NGOs where they should offer their support. More

After 37 nights in custody, diamond whistle-blower Farai Maguwu, director of the Centre for Research and Development, has finally been released on bail. According to VOA news,

Maguwu’s release comes just two days before members of the Kimberly Process and the World Diamond Council are to meet in St Petersburg, Russia, to discuss certification of diamonds from Marange. Kimberly members failed to reach consensus last month on certifying Marange gems amid allegations of human rights abuses.

Coincidence?

I just came across this Y&R Cape Town advert on MarkLives.

Farai Muguwu, director of the Centre for Research and Development, has been remanded in custody again – he’ll be looking at a good 45 days in jail at least before he is released. His crime? Investigating human rights abuses and corrupt dealings in the diamond fields of Marange.

We’ve recently updated our special index on Zimbabwe’s diamond fields, with reports from Global Witness and Partnership Africa Canada.

The Y&R advert advises people to insist on certification to protect themselves from dealing in blood diamonds. But as the PAC report worryingly points out:

The story of Zimbabwe’s contested diamond fields is also a story of how the Kimberley Process – the international initiative created to ensure that the trade in diamonds does not fund violence and civil war – has lost its way.

Zimbabwe is not the only country failing to meet some or all of the basic requirements asked of diamond producing nations by the Kimberley Process. A lack of political will and weak internal controls in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, allows for a steady flow of illegal diamonds onto the international market.

But Zimbabwe sets itself apart from the others because of the government’s brazen defiance of universally agreed principles of humanity and good governance expected of adherents to the Kimberley Process. As such Zimbabwe poses a serious crisis of credibility for the KP, whose impotence in the face of thuggery and illegality in Zimbabwe underscores a worrisome inability or unwillingness to enforce either the letter, or the spirit, of its founding mandate.

Zimbabwe has three Cellular network providers that provide service all over the country. Of these three Econet is the largest outstripping the other two in subscriber base and profits. At the end of the last financial year Econet Wireless Zimbabwe declared an income higher than the government.

There is no doubt that Econet is a prime example of what hard work, determination and a little faith are able to achieve. Considering the odds that were stacked against the company at its inception, Econet provides hope for all future Zimbabwean entrepreneurs with a big idea.

But Econet may also be used to illustrate the effect of big business on little people. As the market leader Econet sets the trend for the Cellular network provider services industry. The Econet brand has been positioned as one that stands for progressiveness, integrity and one that is oriented towards satisfying customer needs. Econet Wireless Zimbabwe fails to meet its own values.

It is difficult to see the integrity in a company that must be asked to revise its tariffs downward after charging much more than companies in the rest of the region. Service delivery has progressively deteriorated as more subscribers are added to Econet’s books. A few months ago, Econet placed full-page ads in the national newspapers, thanking customers for making them number one in terms of subscriber base. This gratitude did not translate to any tangible value for customers. Neither was there an explanation for such bad service delivery.

Most recently, the company has rolled out a plan to increase coverage with its much-touted ’90 base stations in 90 days’ campaign. Yet the more pressing issue of network expansion is glibly dismissed as being in Econet’s ‘future plans’. This may be Africa, but we are not stupid.

Econet’s major competitors would be wise to take advantage of, and not make the same mistakes. Even the most faithful brand loyalist will migrate to a company that delivers the service that is promised.

Here is another article from Rejoice Ngwenya entitled The Folly of African Entrepreneurship:

Zimbabwe, like most developing African countries burdened with the yoke of authoritarian oppression, force-feeds citizens with policy prescriptions only meant to satisfy political egos of ruling elite.  Imposing government ministries of ‘small and medium enterprises’ and ‘indigenisation’ would not suddenly turn Zimbabwe into an industrialised country.

Similarly, investing millions of United States Dollars in education infrastructure to offer business administration training would by itself not achieve much in economic growth.  It is in this context that my cousin who teaches block release students of Masters of Business Administration at a derelict Zimbabwean state university in the midlands city of Gweru makes a stunning observation about the folly of African entrepreneurship.  Notwithstanding the exploits of world-renown African businesspersons like Mo Ibrahim [Sudan], Patrice Motsepe [South Africa], Strive Masiyiwa [Zimbabwe] et al, there is a tendency for emerging economies to over emphasise the virtues of trading as symptomatic of entrepreneurial instincts in Africans.  Vast flea and vegetable markets in Cairo, Casablanca, Accra, Nairobi, Lusaka, Harare and Johannesburg cannot be credible litmus test for successful business, because, according to my cousin, they do not contribute to real economic development. This school of thought is supported by 20th Century economist Joseph Schumpeter.

Zimbabwean ministers of ‘small enterprises’ and ‘indigenisation’ – Sithembiso Nyoni and Saviour Kasukuwere respectively – epitomize the flourishing species of authoritarian regime praise singers who perpetuate the lie that simply buying and selling amounts to entrepreneurship.  Ironically, it is dictators that buy votes by deceiving citizens into non value adding, non innovative ‘income generating’ activities only meant to fill up ballot boxes. Wikipedia isolates Israel Kirzner as one in a few economists who associates entrepreneurship with innovation or value addition.  Importing clothes and cars from Dubai and disposing them off to Harare consumers has no value addition. Countries like Zimbabwe, Swaziland and the Democratic Republic of Congo are politically unstable, with a productive industry decimated by decades of senseless dictatorship, yet their economies are said to have ‘survived’ because of ‘enterprising and resilient citizens’. What a load of hogwash!

Says Wikipedia: “The entrepreneur is widely regarded as an integral player in the business culture of American life, and particularly as an engine for job creation and economic growth.” A country develops while its economy grows when citizens create new products and services that result in more people being employed, consuming and adding to the national fiscus. During electoral campaigns, dictators like Robert Mugabe splash out computers, buses and money to political sympathisers under the guise of ‘economic development and empowerment’. As a result of this patronage, the country fails even to produce cooking oil, soap and shoes because there are no efforts to encourage sustainable innovation. My cousin therefore is correct that Zimbabwe, like most African countries suffering from authoritarian dictatorship, will remain underdeveloped until we transform our political thinking.

No doubt the MBA students he encounters are victims of an education system that was meant to produce workers rather than innovators. It is a poisonous system that infects even financial institutions like Standard Bank Zimbabwe who seek survival from customers with ‘proven’ salary and wages rather than ‘risky’ entrepreneurship.  There is a link between sustainable entrepreneurship and financing, and this chain translates into long term survival of the banking sector.  In a 2009 paper entitled “Banking Deregulations, Financing Constraints and Firm Entry Size” Harvard academics William R. Kerr and Ramana Nanda quote Michelacci and Silva who stress that “better financial access explains why local entrepreneurs operate larger firms…”  In other words, the nexus between finance, entrepreneurship, sustainability and long term growth is an undeniable fact of life.

The Standard Bank, like most conservative ‘orthodox’ commercial banks, has this skewed policy imprint confusing innovation with entrepreneurship. And for good reason. The default rate for unsecured loans has been known to bring down the banking sector. Yet Kerr and Nanda have it on good authority that restrictive regulations in financing innovation are a negative force in the economic growth projectile. This is why it is critically important for us Africans to understand and appreciate the meaning and implication of true entrepreneurship. We must exorcise the demon afflicting banks like Standard that only salary cheques are safe as collateral in securing loans.

At one time in the early part of this decade, Zimbabwean banks or more specifically the financial sector, was registering phenomenal ‘growth’, yet citizens were getting poorer and GDP was shrinking. This was prelude to the ‘annexation’ of banks by Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, and eventually others collapsed under accusation by [Gono] of perpetuating impropriety.  It was during the same period that inflation spiralled to six digits while Zimbabwe’s productive sector almost disappeared. But the strange phenomenon was of a booming ‘entrepreneurship’ in cross border trade, flourishing flea markets and countless trips between China, Dubai and Zimbabwe. In rural areas, young men were digging up the country side to extract and sell gold. Something was clearly wrong.

I therefore conclude this treatise by reasserting the need for us Africans to create new social and business solutions as an entry point to entrepreneurship. Deficits in public communication, governance, food, education, health, industry, commerce and infrastructure are an ideal opportunity to innovate for profit. This is what drives industrialisation, not selling jeans at open markets or vegetables and curios along the freeways. Moreover, financial institutions like the conservative Standard Bank of Zimbabwe defeat the cause of entrepreneurship by not promoting individual inventors but relying on wage and salary remittances. At a time when national productive capacity is below 40%, it is difficult to perceive how a serious bank can ignore entrepreneurs and non-profit organisations on its menu of attracting business. In its haste to pour scorn on ‘flea market entrepreneurs’, the bank has adopted collective condemnation even of those self-employed consultants  who sustained it with valuable foreign currency deposits when the Zimbabwe dollar was toilet paper.  What is now urgent is to overhaul Zimbabwean national economic policy to foster a commitment to innovation rather than flea markets and Chinese toy shops.