The Latest Breaking News from Zimbabwe

In 2003, Thabo Mbeki – then president of South Africa – described South Africa’s economy as being like a two-storey house. The top floor was quite plush, with all the fittings packed neatly together. He referred to this as the modern, diversified economy within South Africa. Below that level, however,…

Zimbabwean security guard Edwin Dapi was already struggling to provide for his wife and four children before a conflict 11,000 km (6,800 miles) away in Ukraine sent global prices for grains, cooking oils, fuel and fertilizer soaring.

A young man sprawls on a local drug dealer’s decrepit beige sofa, lights up the bottom of a carefully cut fluorescent light bulb and, using an improvised pipe, takes a deep puff of the small rock of cheap synthetic methamphetamine, known as crystal meth.

Since the late 1990s, as companies in Zimbabwe have shut down and laid off workers due to the country’s economic crisis, people have resorted to the informal sector to earn a living. It is estimated that 90% of Zimbabweans now have informal sector livelihoods.

This week, Africa Calling podcast brings you audio-rich stories and voices from the African continent with our African correspondents. In Zimbabwe, drug abuse, and using crystal meth in particular, has taken hold among the youth of Masvingo; drum-making artisans are trying to preserve their craft in Cameroon, and Benin is…

Zimbabwe, Africa’s biggest tobacco grower, has opened its selling season for the crop amid pledges to fight deforestation and child labor in response to pressure from rights groups, environmentalists and international buyers

Letter: A reader deplores the way one Zimbabwean asylum seeker has been treated

Maize production in some of the sub-Saharan African countries that dominated maize supplies during the 2021/22 marketing year is expected to be lower this coming season. This will bring about some changes in the sub continent’s maize trade in the 2022/23 marketing year, in particular creating complications for Kenya. In…

Experts say the prevalent drug abuse highlights a lack of social nets as Zimbabwe’s economy continues to tank.