In Finland. We visited Finnpartnership, one of the agencies which work in developing countries creating business networks. Finland has no colonial past, you see, so they are generally welcomed in places the British and French are reviled.
Here we were a cohort of young Southern Africans - black and white. One of the first slides they showed us was of the countries of the world. We zoomed in on Africa, naturally. Low income countries, most of us with only South Africa orange coloured as being Low Middle Income. Zimbabwe was a different country from any of her neighbours...similar only to South Sudan and Somalia...and the key to their pale green colour "fragile states". That label really shook me.
What is a fragile state? It cannot be the country of my beginning. But it turns out that there is a matrix which grade countries into this category. The matrix includes Security Apparatus, Factionalized Elites, Uneven Economic Development, Human Flight and Brain Drain, State Legitimacy, among other indicators. Zimbabwe has all of these and more; and it's neighbours, countries which were far behind Zimbabwe a mere 10 years ago, have moved ahead to be islands of stability and economic progress.
Fragile state...the country of my becoming teeters closer and closer to implosion.
Here we were a cohort of young Southern Africans - black and white. One of the first slides they showed us was of the countries of the world. We zoomed in on Africa, naturally. Low income countries, most of us with only South Africa orange coloured as being Low Middle Income. Zimbabwe was a different country from any of her neighbours...similar only to South Sudan and Somalia...and the key to their pale green colour "fragile states". That label really shook me.
What is a fragile state? It cannot be the country of my beginning. But it turns out that there is a matrix which grade countries into this category. The matrix includes Security Apparatus, Factionalized Elites, Uneven Economic Development, Human Flight and Brain Drain, State Legitimacy, among other indicators. Zimbabwe has all of these and more; and it's neighbours, countries which were far behind Zimbabwe a mere 10 years ago, have moved ahead to be islands of stability and economic progress.
Fragile state...the country of my becoming teeters closer and closer to implosion.
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