By Vivid Gwede
The authors who diagnosed Zimbabwe’s political and economic problems over a decade ago have won the 2024 Economics Nobel Prize.
Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson in their seminal book, “Why Nations Fail,” released in 2012, explained what led to countries like Zimbabwe to remain mired in poverty while other nations progressed.
The Nobel Prize is awarded to distinguished people globally in different fields – with one of the prizes offered in economics.
In Zimbabwe, the late former Prime Minister and opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai is the only person to have been nominated for a Nobel Prize (for peace) twice, in succession, in 2009 – when US President Barack Obama won the prize – and in 2010.
The nominations honoured Tsvangirai’s contribution to the democratization and human rights struggle in Zimbabwe.
The two authors of “Why Nations Fail,” Acemoglu and Robinson, alongside their colleague Simon Johnson have been honoured for explaining the important role political institutions play in economic growth.
While economists haggle about what causes sustained economic growth as with other developmental questions, Acemoglu and his colleagues argued persuasively that political institutions matter.
The book explained that Zimbabwe was one of the countries held back by “extractive institutions” that benefited a few elites and left everyone else in a “vicious circle” of poverty.
Particularly, they argue with other examples that extractive institutions discourage savings, investment and innovation.
Coming out during the Government of National Unity (GNU) (2009 – 2013) and after the historic polycrisis of 2008 in Zimbabwe, “Why Nations Fail” spotlighted Zimbabwe’s perennial governance problems.
It revealed what many people continue to argue about Zimbabwe’s problems – the need to de-polarise and institute inclusive political and economic reforms.
Winning the coveted Nobel Prize reinforces the arguments of Acemoglu, Robinson and Johnson, especially as Zimbabwe fails to socioeconomically transform.
While the economic troubles of 2008 seem gone, currency problems, unemployment, high poverty rates, poor service delivery, lack of economic growth and industrialization, and corruption remain.
The solution the Nobel Prize winners propose is “inclusive institutions” that work for the benefit of everyone and promote a “virtuous circle” of growth and prosperity.
Their work suggests the need for institutional reforms to enable transformation in Zimbabwe.
Institutional change has occupied the political debate in Zimbabwe since the 1980s when students led by Arthur Mutambara and workers led by Tsvangirai resisted the move toward a legislated one-party state.
Transformational leadership that will deliver the inclusive institutions that the Nobel Prize winners recommend for development has also been topical since the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) launched in 1999.
The question of political transformation has also suffused the debate in the 2023 elections championed by the opposition under Advocate Nelson Chamisa and his former party Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC).
Post-Tsvangirai, Chamisa has fashioned himself as the leader of the transformation consensus under the institutional and economic blueprints of a New Great Zimbabwe.
Centring this vision is a futuristic post-democratization economy — “spaghetti roads” and “bullet trains.”
The question of transforming Zimbabwe’s political and economic institutions to escape the country’s poverty traps will haunt future debates.
The commentary realizes the tragedy of mounting missed opportunities to create “inclusive institutions” since the turn of the millennium.
During the five years of the GNU, those who benefited from Zimbabwe’s “extractive institutions” spiritedly defended them.
Another missed opportunity occurred during former President Robert Mugabe’s removal in November 2017, when some hoped for an inclusive transitional authority.
In both episodes, people thought the different political interests in the country would unite to institute a consensual governance framework and institutional arrangement.
Enlightened hopes once attached to the writing of the 2013 New Constitution of Zimbabwe and its institutional framework have been frustrated by either passive disregard or active reversal of its tenets through amendments.
As Zimbabwe struggles for solutions, with the authors of “Why National Fail” winning the Nobel Prize, the country is reminded to seize rather than pass opportunities to build its own “inclusive institutions.”
These should undergird a transformed and prosperous Zimbabwe.
Thus the Nobel Prize winners, two of whom are authors of “Why Nations Fail,” indicate a potential solution to Zimbabwe’s protracted problems.
Zimbabwe, let the weeds grow with the wheat, they shall be seen by their fruits!!!
The author is a 2023-4 Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow in Public Policy and Public Administration and Fellow of the Special Program on Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where two of the Nobel Laureates, Acemoglu and Johnson teach.
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