Simelisizwe Sibanda
Education is one of Zimbabwe’s most powerful instruments for breaking poverty and transforming rural communities.
Yet economic restrictions can frustrate the ability of families to earn incomes, businesses to trade, banks to process payments and institutions to mobilise resources.
In districts such as Bubi and Lupane in Matabeleland North Province, these pressures can reach the classroom through reduced household purchasing power, delayed investment and higher costs for essential educational supplies.
The burden is especially severe where parents have little financial cushion. The description of sanctions as “targeted” conceals a fundamental human reality: an individual does not live in isolation.
When a father who is the head and breadwinner of a household is subjected to financial restrictions, his children, spouse, elderly parents and other dependents may suffer alongside him. If he cannot transact, access credit, sell goods or sustain a business, school fees go unpaid, uniforms become unaffordable and food disappears from the family table.
A name may be targeted on paper, but the economic consequences can spread throughout an entire household. No child should pay the price for the designation of a parent. The effects can extend beyond designated persons. Financial institutions, insurers, suppliers and investors may avoid transactions involving Zimbabwe because they fear compliance penalties or reputational risks.
This phenomenon of over-compliance can obstruct lawful business, slow payments, increase transaction costs and deter investment. Enterprises that lose access to finance may cut production and employment; farmers may struggle to obtain inputs and markets; families may lose income needed for food, transport and education.
These are the pathways through which supposedly narrow restrictions can have much wider consequences.
The precise legal landscape has changed, but the issue has not disappeared. In March 2024, the United States terminated its Zimbabwe-specific sanctions programme while designating certain persons and entities under the Global Magnitsky framework. In February 2026 the European union lifted its remaining travel bans and asset freezes while renewing an arms embargo until February 2027.
These distinctions should be stated accurately. They do not eliminate the need to examine the effects of continuing designations, financial de-risking and obstacles to legitimate international transactions. For a rural learner, the consequences of constrained livelihoods are painfully concrete.
A parent unable to secure income may be forced to choose between buying food and paying school costs. Children may attend lessons hungry, walk long distances without proper shoes, share scarce textbooks or miss school altogether. When foreign payments become difficult or costly, the procurement of educational equipment, laboratory materials, digital devices and other imported inputs may also be affected.
Economic pressure on families can, therefore, become educational exclusion for children who had no part in the decisions that produced the restrictions. The pressure on rural education does not end at the household gate.
Restricted access to finance and investment can make it harder to mobilise resources for classrooms, teachers’ accommodation, school furniture, connectivity and learning materials.
Bubi constituency offers a practical illustration of the importance of investment. In September 2025, Majiji Primary School received 100 desks and 100 chairs to improve learning conditions.
Imagine how many more schools could benefit if households, enterprises and development partners faced fewer financial obstacles. Majiji’s example is evidence of the value of educational investment, not a claim that its particular needs were caused by sanctions.
National school-support initiatives demonstrate the scale of resources required to sustain rural learning. The original article reported that School Improvement Grant funding reached 2 799 schools and approximately 893 784 learners in 2024.
Such programmes underline why access to affordable finance, reliable transactions and investment matters. Every dollar absorbed by avoidable transaction costs, every commercial opportunity lost to excessive caution and every household income interrupted can reduce the resources potentially available for education. Zimbabwe does not stand alone in calling for the removal of sanctions.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) established October 25 as Anti-Sanctions Day in 2019. On October 25, 2026, SADC Chairperson President Cyril Ramaphosa called for the complete and unconditional lifting of sanctions on Zimbabwe and stressed their wider regional implications.
On October 23, 2026, African union Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf likewise urged their immediate and unconditional removal. These regional and continental positions reinforce the demand that the human and developmental consequences of restrictive measures be confronted rather than dismissed.
Solidarity must now be translated into visible action. SADC, the African union and friendly nations should intensify coordinated diplomatic engagement with sanctioning governments; Zimbabwean parliamentarians should engage counterparts abroad; universities and researchers should document effects on households, schools, enterprises and financial access; and business associations should identify lawful transactions impeded by excessive compliance practices.
United Nations mechanisms and other international forums should receive well-substantiated evidence of these effects. The objective must be practical relief, not merely annual declarations. Our call is unequivocal: lift remaining unjustified restrictive measures, provide fair and transparent review of individual designations, and ensure that legitimate trade, investment, payments and humanitarian activities are not obstructed by unnecessary financial barriers.
Sanctioning authorities should assess and disclose the effects of their measures on dependents, workers, farmers and rural communities. Financial institutions should be encouraged to distinguish prohibited activity from lawful transactions rather than excluding an entire market through blanket caution.
Above all, the anti-sanctions campaign must put the rural child at its centre. The cost of a blocked transaction can be a missed school term; the cost of lost employment can be a child leaving school; and the cost of delayed investment can be another classroom without essential materials.
A child in Bubi, Lupane, Binga or Tsholotsho deserves the same opportunity to become a doctor, engineer, teacher, scientist or entrepreneur as any other child. International economic pressure must never be treated as though it ends at the doorstep of the individual named in a sanctions notice.
When a father’s livelihood is constrained, an entire household can be pushed into hardship. When rural children lose educational opportunities, the country loses future skills, productivity and innovation.
Sanctions must, therefore, be judged not only by their legal labels but also by their real-world consequences. Let Anti-Sanctions Day be a demand for action: remove unjustified restrictions, unblock lawful economic activity, protect family livelihoods and safeguard the educational dreams of Zimbabwe’s rural children.
Therefore, On SADC Anti-Sanctions Day, the spotlight must fall on the families, rural communities and schoolchildren who bear the consequences of economic restrictions imposed far beyond their control.
l Simelisizwe Sibanda is the Deputy Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development. He writes in his personal capacity.
