CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 37African studies and sociopolitical issuesHealthcare Systems and ReformsHealthcare Systems and Practices

The Zimbabwe Crisis and the Provision of Social Services: Health and Education

Nyazema, Norman Z.·2010·Journal of Developing Societies
DOI 10.1177/0169796x1002600204
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Historically, health care in Zimbabwe was provided primarily to cater to colonial administrators and the expatriate, with separate care or second-provision made for Africans. There was no need for legislation to guarantee its provision to the settler community. To address the inequities in health that had existed prior to 1980, at independence, Zimbabwe adopted the concept of Equity in Health and Primary Health Care. Initially, this resulted in the narrowing of the gap between health provision in rural areas and urban areas. Over the years, however, there have been clear indications of growing inequities in health provision and health care as a result of mainly Economic Structural Adjustment Policies (ESAP), 1991–1995, and health policy changes. Infant and child mortality have been worsened by the impact of HIV/AIDS and reduced access to affordable essential health care. For example, life expectancy at birth was 56 in the 1980s, increased to 60 in 1990 and is now about 43. Morbidity (diseases) and mortality (death rates) trends in Zimbabwe show that the population is still affected by the traditional preventable diseases and conditions that include nutritional deficiencies, communicable diseases, pregnancy and childbirth conditions and the conditions of the new born. The deterioration of the Zimbabwean health services sector has also partially been due to increasing shortages of qualified personnel. The public sector has been operating with only 19 per cent staff since 2000. Many qualified and competent health workers left the country because of the unfavourable political environment. The health system in Zimbabwe has been operating under a legal and policy framework that in essence does not recognize the right to health. Neither the pre-independence constitution nor the Lancaster House constitution, which is the current Constitution of Zimbabwe, made specific provisions for the right to health. Progress made in the 1980s characterized by adequate financing of the health system and decentralized health management and equity of health services between urban and rural areas, which saw dramatic increases in child survival rates and life expectancy, was, unfortunately, not consolidated. As of 2000 per capita health financing stood at USD 8.55 as compared to USD 23.6, which had been recommended by the Commission of Review into the Health Sector in 1997. At the beginning of 2008 it had been dramatically further eroded and stood at only USD 0.19 leading to the collapse of the health system. Similarly, education in Zimbabwe, in addition to the changes it has undergone during the different periods since attainment of independence, also went through many phases during the colonial period. From 1962 up until 1980, the Rhodesia Front government catered more for the European child. Luckily, some mission schools that had been established earlier kept on expanding taking in African children who could proceed with secondary education (high school education). Inequity in education existed when the ZANU-PF government came into power in 1980. It took aggressive and positive steps to redress the inequalities that existed in the past. Unfortunately, the government did not come up with an education policy or philosophy in spite of massive expansion and investment. The government had cut its expenditure on education because of economic and political instability. This has happened particularly in rural areas, where teachers have left the teaching profession.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1177/0169796x1002600204

Cites

15 of 15 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The decline in health and education provision in Zimbabwe over the last decade has been dramatic, with the quality of rural service provision now very poor across the country.

    “The decline in health and education provision in Zimbabwe over the last decade has been dramatic, with the quality of rural service provision now very poor across the country (Nyazema, 2010), 13 suggesting another urgent rural development priority.”

    From Livelihood Change in Rural Zimbabwe over 20 Years (2012) · cites this paper as Nyazema, 2010

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Nyazema, N. Z.
Affiliations
University of Limpopo (ZA)
Corresponding author
Nyazema, Norman Z.
ORCID
Nyazema, Norman Z.
Venue
Journal of Developing Societies
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2010-06
Volume
26
Issue
2
Pages
233-261
ISSN
  • 0169-796X (ISSN-L)
  • 1745-2546
DOI
10.1177/0169796x1002600204
OpenAlex
W2069159687
Cited by
37
References
14
Citations by year
2025: 4 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 3 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 3
FWCI
5.20
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Journal of Developing Societies (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › African studies and sociopolitical issues
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Finance › Healthcare Systems and Reforms
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Healthcare Systems and Practices
Keywords
health care inequities, social services, health policy, structural adjustment, HIV/AIDS, right to health, health care financing, health workforce shortage, primary care, health system collapse, education policy, colonial health care, life expectancy, child mortality, health care legislation, health care reform

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review