Zimbabwe’s Missing Rural Commercial Economy: Why Rural Industrialisation Will Fail Without Modern Markets

HARARE — The image (above) represent the standard model of a Zimbabwean rural shop that has existed since pre-independence Rhodesia; usually built on the dusty rural roadside and surrounded by open ground without other supporting infrastructure, it captures a much larger economic problem confronting Zimbabwe. The building may serve its immediate community, but it also represents the persistence of an outdated commercial architecture in a rural economy that has changed considerably beneath it.

Zimbabwe’s rural areas are no longer simply subsistence economies waiting for development to arrive from the cities. They are increasingly monetised consumer markets, agricultural production zones, remittance economies, construction markets and sources of entrepreneurial activity. New houses, schools, boreholes, solar installations, small businesses and transport services are appearing across the countryside. Yet the commercial infrastructure required to organise this economic activity into efficient markets has not developed at the same pace.