SDG 1: No Poverty: What the Data Shows

The Government of Zimbabwe has prioritised ending poverty. The country’s poverty reduction strategy is anchored on the Vision 2030 which seeks to rebuild and transform Zimbabwe into an Upper-Middle Income Economy by 2030. Vision 2030 will be realised through five strategic clusters namely: governance; macro-economic stability and re-engagement; inclusive growth; social/human capital development; and infrastructure and utilities. The National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) which is the successor to the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) (2016-2018) is actively targeting employment creation and poverty reduction. The trends on key indicators show that:

1. The proportion of the population that was deemed poor, marginally dropped to 70.5% in 2017 from 72.3% in 2011/12. There are however regional as well as rural-urban disparities. Mashonaland Central Province has the highest individual poverty rate of 87.9%. The lowest individual poverty prevalence is in Bulawayo Province, 29.9%, followed by Harare Province with 37.3%. On the other hand, the individual prevalence of poverty in rural areas rose from 84.3% in 2011/12 to 86.0% in 2017, while in urban areas it rose from 30.4% in 2011/12 to 40.9% in 2017. This shows that poverty rose faster in urban than rural areas. The prevalence of poverty for people with disabilities is higher at 74.1% when compared with a prevalence of 69.5% for people without disabilities. Male-headed households are poorer than female-headed households. The prevalence of poverty among male-headed households is 61.6% when compared with 58.9% for female-headed households. Extreme poverty is also higher among male-headed households at 25.2% when compared to female-headed households of 21.2%.
2. Extreme poverty among the population increased from 22.5% in 2011/12 to 29.3% in 2017 on account of the economic slowdown over the past few years. Extreme poverty levels among the rural population rose from 30.4% to 40.9% between 2011/12 and 2017 while extreme poverty rates among the urban population dropped from 5.6% to 4.4%.
3. Social protection coverage remains limited and inadequate. According to the 2019 Labour Force and Child Labour Survey (LFCLS), about 249,000 persons, which is approximately 2% of the population, were receiving a monthly pension or any social security fund or both. With respect to medical insurance, about 984,000 persons, representing about 7% of the population, indicated they were members of a medical aid scheme.
4. Zimbabwe’s HDI value of 0.563 in 2018 lifts the country into the medium human development category, ranked at 150 out of 189 countries, which is an improvement from the rank of 153 in 2017.
5. Government has also upscaled provision of food assistance, social cash transfers, health assistance, holistic education support including school feeding and provision of sanitary wear for female learners in schools. Over the period 2019-2020, the following milestones were achieved:
   1. 126,000 households were supported through cash transfers;
   2. 1,248,950 have been assisted through food assistance;
   3. 1,406,875 orphans and vulnerable children were assisted with through educational
   4. support under the BEAM programme;
   5. 69,925 children were reached with care and protection- links with SDG 16 on prevention and response to trafficking of children.

As we continue to share the emerging trends, theSpace seeks to encourage young people to continue to take up action on SDGs, compliment development partners while helping uplift their communities out of poverty by 2030. 

Denise Mangunda 

theSpace SDGs Team Leader

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