admincentred on the creation of opportunities for people to help themselves, leading agricultural economist Professor Mandivamba Rukuni said yesterday.
In his presentation on the Korean Economic Development Experiences for Zimbabwe held at the Institute of East and West Studies at Yonsei University in Seoul, Prof Rukuni stressed that such an initiative would be able to build their own capacity to learn, be innovative and create knowledge.
“This will help them build their confidence in their culture and knowledge systems. Ultimately it will also build their capacity to borrow intelligently with a sense of dignity and hope in the future particularly for the youth.
“Development is about people, and they have to be self actualised and be able to make their own choices.” he said.
He said development was about modernising and not Westernising Africa and the culture is based on humanness, collective responsibility and social welfare.
Another outstanding characteristic is strong families and strong communities. The lecture was hosted for the visiting Zimbabwe business delegation led by Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere that has been in Seoul for the past five days.
Under the political framework, Prof Rukuni said Zimbabwe needed to transform from an agrarian to an urban-industrial economy as 70 percent of the economy resided in communal areas.
He explained that a four-stage approach to the development process involved the mobilisation of agriculture and natural resources, public assets and infrastructure development.
The second stage would lead to the development of agriculture and mining sectors as the backbone of the economy resulting in the development of greater links with the manufacturing sector and industry in general.
A spin-off from this would be market efficiency whereby the quality of the product would be appealing and the creation of capital.
In the case for Zimbabwe, Prof Rukuni observed that the establishment of community share trusts mainly in mining areas and the planned sovereign wealth fund were an innovative way to harness capital.
The next stage would see the full integration of agriculture and mining into a market economy where the majority takes part.
In the final stage, Prof Rukuni said agriculture and mining become part of the industrial economy and with the majority now integrated into the urban areas and begin practicing economies of size.
In the early stages of development, Prof Rukuni pointed out that it would broadly be a factor-driven economy benchmarked on agriculture and mining and from then on it would be an efficiency driven economy with manufacturing in the centre stage.
An innovation driven economy like the current status of the Korean economy, he said was more of a knowledge economy where Zimbabwe could benefit not only through technological transfer, but also research.
He added that Zimbabwe could be transformed into a springboard of a manufacturing hub in southern Africa if the right environment was cultivated.
Prof Rukuni alluded to the almost similar colonial legacy, which drove the Asian country to aggressively convert its political freedom to economic freedom.
He said land reform as it was experienced in both countries and elsewhere has always inevitably been political with land viewed as power, prestige and social status.
Prof Rukuni said transferring resource rights – the process currently underway in Zimbabwe at the moment – was the basis of building local economic institutions that link with the mainstream economy.
He observed that Asia was able to complete land reforms quicker than South America and Africa, noting that feudal land systems were easier to reform than colonial plantation systems mainly prevalent in Africa.
Online Reporter