A conflict far distant United Nations agencies have warned that Ukraine has made Zimbabwe’s multi-faceted, decades-old economic crisis worse, with the agriculture sector in the southern African nation being the hardest hit due to increased food insecurity and higher living expenses.
The World Food Programme (WFP), International Organization for Migration (IOM), and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) painted a bleak picture of the situation in Zimbabwe in a report titled: Impact of the Ukraine Crisis in Zimbabwe that covers the period between February 2022 and when Russia invaded its neighbour and October.
Before the conflict between Russia and Ukraine started, Zimbabwe’s economy was already beset by a long list of issues, including growing inflation, a lack of foreign direct investment, unmanageable amounts of foreign debt, and corruption.
Zimbabwe was also recovering from the catastrophic Covid-19 outbreak, which caused unheard-of worldwide economic upheavals.
Prices increased, supply chains were disrupted, and living conditions generally declined as a result of the start of the conflict.
More than half of Zimbabwe’s population is fed by UN organizations, but they worry that the Russia-Ukraine crisis would make things much more difficult for the southern African nation.
“The faraway war has had direct effects on increasing food, fuel and fertilizer prices and disrupted supply chains and trade, leading to fiscal tightening and a widening of inequalities and governance issues,” the agencies said in the report.
“Poor households have further fallen into food insecurity emanating from the increased cost of living.
“While some of these factors cannot be directly linked to the Ukraine crisis, analysis shows that the conflict in Europe has exacerbated vulnerability and migration as a coping mechanism.”
The WFP, IOM and FAO have been jointly monitoring the impact of the Ukraine-Russia conflict on rising food prices, food security, access to essential needs and agricultural inputs, and migration patterns in Zimbabwe.
They concluded that the situation was “precarious because inflation still remains very high, the lean season has begun earlier than usual, high costs for agricultural inputs— particularly fertilizer are being observed, and there is possibility of a delayed start of the rainy season in the primary crop-producing northern regions of the country.”
Zimbabwe has one of the highest rates of inflation in the world—more than 280 percent—and is the only nation in southern Africa with a headline inflation rate of more than 50 percent.
For the upcoming growing season, the nation is anticipated to have difficulty obtaining fertiliser.
Over half of the 800 000 tonnes of fertilizer used in Zimbabwe each season is imported from Russia and Belarus.
“Zimbabwe depends heavily on fertilizer imports (ammonium nitrate, urea, potash, and ammonia gas) from Russia and Belarus and the conflict has far reaching consequences on availability and affordability,” the UN agencies added.
“In fact, 70 percent of the fertilizers used in Zimbabwe are imported as raw materials and or finished products and this exposes the market to the effects of global shortages and price volatility.
“These higher prices are making fertilizers unaffordable and out of reach to communal farmers and will have a negative effect on productivity of maize, soya beans and other crops in the main 2022/23 cropping season.”
Globally, the conflict has had a significant impact on the supply of fertilizer raw materials – creating a shortage and leading to all-time high price increases of over 100 percent.
“The rise in logistical costs by over 100 percent due to increased demand and a shortage of shipping vessels and fuel, has increased the landed fertilizer prices in Zimbabwe and other import dependent countries,” the agencies added.
Zimbabwe has experienced difficulties with fuel imports as well. Singapore, South Africa, and Mozambique supply the majority of the nation’s fuel.
Fuel costs experienced a substantial increase right away following the commencement of the Ukraine crisis, while already being on the rise before the start of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Petrol prices increased from US$ 1.51 per liter in March to US$ 1.77 per liter in June by 17%, while diesel prices increased by 25% from US$ 1.51 per liter in March to US$ 1.88 per liter in June.
“This upward trend was also observed on the global market and is largely attributed to the effects of the Ukraine-crisis,” the report added.
“In June, the government of Zimbabwe enacted measures to stabilize the price of fuel, resulting in a reduction of the average cost by 10 percent.
“However, the current price remains 18 percent higher than it was during the pre-crisis period.
“The rising costs of fuel contributed to the increase in the price of basic food and non-food commodities.”
Zimbabwe noted a 15% decline in the supply of vegetable oil during the same time period.
Zimbabwe buys 96% of its sunflower oil from outside, putting it susceptible to the consequences of the interruption in global supply chains. This decline was attributed to the Ukraine conflict.
Nearly a fifth of the commodity’s global exports come from Russia and Ukraine.
The cost of a basic food basket increased by an average of 7% in Zimbabwe between January and September of this year as a result of the sharp price spike.
Bread went from costing US$1 per loaf in January to around US$2.10 per loaf in May, a price rise of more than 100%.
Remittances also saw a minor decline, which the UN agencies said could be partly linked to the impact of the crisis in the nations where they originate.
“Among those who received remittances, 90 percent reported that these were not adequate to cover essential needs,” the report added.
“Of the households who reported receiving remittances, between 62 and 75 percent use the remittances mainly for food, followed by education (17 to 21%) and health services (four to seven percent.”
For the past 20 years, Zimbabwe’s economy has been thrown from crisis to catastrophe.
The country’s currency collapsed in 1997 as a result of unbudgeted pension payments made by the late Robert Mugabe’s dictatorship to veterans of the country’s liberation war in the 1970s.
When Zimbabwe sent forces to engage in the Democratic Republic of the Congo civil war in 1999, which also attracted armies from Uganda, Rwanda, and Angola, the situation deteriorated.
Disputed elections and human rights violations caused the country to become economically isolated, which has had a significant negative impact on the economy. The violent land reform programme that forced the eviction of approximately 5000 commercial farmers was the cause of this.
One of the few African nations to publicly endorse Russia’s incursion into Ukraine is Zimbabwe.
