Fallen Giant Bouncing Back

Once the envy of most sub-Saharan African states as it carried much of Africa's post-colonial regeneration on its once-broad shoulders, fortified by a bustling economy and high literacy, Zimbabwe's star has plummeted over the past twenty years. The last ten years have been particularly unforgiving. Under long-serving ZANU-PF leader Robert Mugabe's charge, ten successive years of economic turmoil between 1999 and 2008 - we estimate that nominal GDP plunged from US$5.7bn to US$3.2bn - brought the population to its knees (once over 60 years, life expectancy has worryingly slid below 40), decimated its fast-moving consumer goods industry and drained out

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