Progress in Zimbabwe? Foreign currencies stave off a collapse

Zimbabwean students receive school supplies through a MercyCorps program. Photo: Richard Nyamanhindi for MercyCorps

Zimbabwe isn’t often the source of good news, but monetary stability seems to have delivered progress in one of the world’s worst economies. Now, the country’s continued improvements depend on still-questionable political stability.

According to a Wall Street Journal opinion piece this month, the legalization of foreign currency in 2009 has pulled the economy out of its dive-bomb.

The economy expanded by 9 percent in 2010 and 2011 after contracting by 18 percent in 2008. Shops and pharmacies are full, and Zimbabwe's human-development indicators, including longevity and child mortality, have improved.

Yet a promising future in Zimbabwe remains hampered by political questions and long-time trends, write the authors of the Wall Street Journal piece.

Unless the government can show a clear and irreversible break with the past, it cannot hope to convince the country's diaspora—the would-be doctors, bankers and engineers—to return home and reverse the brain drain that has set in since...1980.

Good political decisions have helped many Zimbabweans move out of extreme poverty. But for continued progress, Zimbabwe must prove to both foreigners and its own people that it continues to become a better place to invest and work.