By Staff Reporter
MASVINGO – Zimbabwe is grappling with a staggering debt burden estimated at between
US$21 billion and US$23 billion in external debt, alongside a growing domestic debt of nearly
US$10 billion, a situation that continues to strangle the country’s development and undermine
citizens’ rights to essential services such as health, education, and social protection.
This came out during a two-day 8 th Annual Debt Conference which ran from July 15 to 16, 2026,
in Masvingo under the theme “Rethinking Sovereign Debt Management in Zimbabwe: Justice,
sovereignty and people-centered socio-economic development in a global polycrisis.
The conference, organized by the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD)
in partnership with TellZim News, brought together representatives from the Ministry of Local
Government, the Ministry of Women Affairs, the Ministry of Public Service, Masvingo City
Council leadership, and experts from various departments.
Presenting the conference declaration at a press conference on July 16, ZIMCODD Executive
Director John Maketo said Zimbabwe’s debt crisis exists within an increasingly complex global
polycrisis characterized by climate change, armed conflicts, geopolitical fragmentation, trade
disputes, and widening inequalities, all of which have compounded the country’s fiscal
challenges.
“We recognize that Zimbabwe’s Public and Publicly Guaranteed debt, estimated at between
US$21 billion and US$23 billion, continues to constrain structural transformation, limit fiscal
space, reduce investor confidence and compromise the State’s ability to fulfil its constitutional
and developmental obligations,” said Maketo.
He warned that the growing domestic debt burden, estimated at nearly US$10 billion, presented
equally significant fiscal risks that required urgent domestic policy responses, adding that weak
public financial management, corruption, procurement irregularities, exchange-rate distortions,
overpricing of public contracts, and accumulation of arrears had continued to worsen domestic
indebtedness.
The conference noted that debt servicing obligations currently consume 11 percent of mobilized
revenues, crowding out investments in productive sectors and critical public services such as
health, education, social protection, infrastructure, and local government development.
Maketo emphasized that unsustainable debt was not just an economic issue but fundamentally a
question of justice, governance, and human dignity.
“Sovereign debt is not merely a macroeconomic challenge but fundamentally a question of
justice, governance, democracy, human rights, intergenerational equity and national sovereignty.
Unsustainable debt undermines citizens’ dignity by diverting scarce public resources away from
essential services including health, education, social protection, infrastructure and local
government development,” said Maketo.
The conference also recognised the disproportionate impact of debt on women and young
women, noting that pressure on unpaid care work increases when investment in public services
diminishes due to debt, and that the link between the debt crisis and gender-based violence
should not be ignored.
Delegates observed that women in mining communities face unique challenges that reflect a lack
of real investment in these communities as resources are channelled towards debt servicing, and
that fiscal and monetary policies do not reflect the current state of the economy which has
become largely informal.
Maketo also called for comprehensive ways of giving citizens information about the national
debt, stressing that transparency was essential for democratic accountability and that public debt
must be treated as public business.
“Public debt is public business. Citizens have a right to know how much the country owes, who
it owes, and what the money was used for. We need comprehensive public education and
disclosure so that citizens can hold their leaders accountable,” he said.
Maketo emphasized that debt management should contribute directly to reducing poverty,
unemployment, and inequality, and that citizens must be placed at the centre of debt policy
through meaningful public participation.
“We commit ourselves to advancing transparent and accountable debt governance, strengthening
domestic resource mobilisation, promoting productive borrowing, protecting social investments,
and advocating for a fair and equitable global financial architecture,” Maketo said.
Delegates called for comprehensive debt relief for countries facing unsustainable debt burdens
and demanded that climate finance be provided primarily as grants and highly concessional
finance rather than loans.
They also supported reform of international financial institutions to ensure equitable
representation of African countries, and called for a United Nations Framework Convention on
Sovereign Debt that establishes fair, transparent and legally binding debt restructuring
mechanisms.
On domestic debt management, the conference urged the government to address domestic debt
through comprehensive fiscal reforms, eliminate corruption and financial leakages, strengthen
public financial management systems, combat illicit financial flows and aggressive tax
avoidance, modernise tax administration through digital technologies, and leverage Zimbabwe’s
mineral wealth transparently, including establishing appropriate sovereign and sinking funds for
strategic debt reduction.
Delegates reaffirmed that public debt is public business and urged the government to conduct
comprehensive public debt audits, including identifying odious and non-performing debt, publish
complete information on public borrowing, debt composition, and debt utilisation, strengthen
parliamentary oversight over borrowing, and enhance the independence and capacity of oversight
institutions, including the Public Accounts Committee and the Auditor-General’s Office.
The conference further encouraged the government to protect health, education, social
protection, and local government financing during debt resolution, and to ring-fence social
expenditure, while also continuing the pilot exercise of establishing a social registry to ensure
deserving beneficiaries of cash transfer programmes.
On the private sector, delegates noted that high public borrowing crowds out productive private
sector investment and that government arrears to businesses constrain liquidity and investment,
calling on the government to clear verified domestic arrears owed to businesses in an accelerated
and transparent manner, restructure debt maturity profiles to create fiscal space for productive
expenditure, and improve access to affordable finance.
Delegates also urged the government to contribute to strengthening Africa’s collective voice on
sovereign debt reform through joining the Borrowers Platform and the Debt Managers Network,
and to implement commitments contained in the Lomé and Harare Declarations as well as the
Common African Position on Debt.
