The IMF has signed off on another review. Harare is celebrating the wrong number.
Zimbabwe wants back into the international financial system, and on October 8 it got a small step closer.
Several outlets reported that the International Monetary Fund had completed the second review of the country’s 10-month Staff-Monitored Programme.
Expect the government to treat it as a victory.
It is a progress report.
The program is a non-financing arrangement. IMF staff monitor policy, and no money changes hands.
Its only value is the track record it builds, which Zimbabwe needs to win arrears clearance, a debt deal, and eventual access to outside finance. That record has to be long, because the country’s history is not reassuring. Default, currency collapse, and abandoned reforms are the reason creditors are skeptical, and a few encouraging quarters do not erase them.
The headline numbers are good, and the government will lean on them. The IMF says Zimbabwe met its quantitative and indicative targets through June, projects growth of 5 percent this year after 8.3 percent in 2025, and reports that inflation fell to 2.9 percent in August.
Credit where it is due. After years of price chaos, that is a real improvement.
But the government is celebrating the wrong number.
The one target Zimbabwe missed was protected social and priority spending, and it is the one that matters most.
Collecting revenue and holding the line on money are the easy parts of a reform program, because they serve the Treasury. Getting money to vulnerable households and basic services on time is the hard part, because it asks the state to put others first.
A government that passes every test except that one is telling you what it prioritizes. Low inflation and a growth rate are not recovery if wages trail prices and clinics and schools see none of it.
Stabilization is not security, and Zimbabweans have earned the right to be unimpressed by one without the other.
Credibility is built in dull places, and this is where the government should be judged. It is built when spending follows the approved budget, when liabilities are disclosed, and when financial statements are published.
The IMF has pressed for exactly that, including publication of the Mutapa Investment Fund’s accounts and, eventually, those of its portfolio companies. Transparency is the price of the trust Zimbabwe says it wants.
A state that asks the world to believe in its management while keeping the books closed is asking for faith, and no creditor lends on faith.
The real test is still ahead. Every government keeps its promises while keeping them is cheap. What separates a credible one is what it does when discipline collides with the expedient choice, in an election cycle, in a succession fight, or in a bad harvest year. Zimbabwe has never lacked recovery plans or ambitious targets. It has lacked follow-through, and a record built to unlock financing is worthless if it is abandoned once the financing arrives.
The government has two audiences and one job.
It must convince creditors that it will honor its commitments, and convince Zimbabweans that the discipline is paying off at home.
If it can only manage the first, the reforms will not last, because a public that sees no benefit has no reason to defend them.
This review is a step forward. It is not a debt deal, a guarantee of new money, or proof that anyone’s life has improved. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
Zimbabwe wants the world’s money. First it must show the world, and its own citizens, that its promises will outlast the applause.
Source: Zimbabwe Wants the World’s Money But Hasn’t Earned the World’s Trust – Zealous Thierry
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