‘Zimbabwe is open for business’: Aspects of post-Mugabe economic diplomacy

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the last two decades of President Robert Mugabe’s rule, Zimbabwe experienced unprecedented economic decline and international isolation. In his inauguration speech on 24 November 2017, Mugabe’s successor President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared that ‘Zimbabwe is open for business’ and promised that through engagement and re-engagement policy, Zimbabwe would rejoin the international community of nations to ensure sustainable economic growth. Using a frame of analysis developed by van Bergeijk, de Groot and Yakop focused on inward and outward economic diplomacy, this article examines the domestic and foreign aspects of Zimbabwe’s new economic diplomacy. Most evidence from available sources suggests that this new economic diplomacy has not yielded much – because of the government’s legitimacy crisis and evident authoritarianism, its failure to implement political and economic reforms, and continued negative perceptions of Zimbabwe in the international community – making calls for reform all the more critical to the economic outlook of the country.