Zimbabwe's Hidden Deficit

Mainini Saru still wakes at five.

Old habit. For thirty years, she rose early to prepare before the neighbourhood stirred, before the children needed feeding, before the women gathered, before the day became communal property. The market used to open at six. She would be there before the best tomatoes were gone, before Maiguru Chipo claimed the prime spot near the entrance, before the real business of the morning began, not the buying and selling, but the talking. The catching up. The being known.

The market is gone now. A mansion stands where it used to be. Tall walls. Electric fence. No faces visible from the street. Her children are in Johannesburg, in Birmingham, in Auckland. Her burial society dissolved three years ago. The community hall at the end of her street has been converted into a tyre fitment centre. She is not poor her children send money reliably. But she is alone in a way that money cannot fix.

When Zimbabwe's challenges are discussed, the conversation almost always revolves around economics. Inflation. Unemployment. Exchange rates. The cost of living. These conversations matter, they describe real pressures facing real people.

But another deficit receives almost no attention.

A connection deficit.

A growing shortage of the relationships, institutions, and shared spaces that once bound communities together. Unlike financial deficits, this one cannot be measured in percentages or balance sheets. No minister announces it in Parliament. No economist tracks it in quarterly reviews.

Yet its effects are becoming increasingly visible.

For generations, Zimbabwean society was built around what sociologists call "third places," spaces outside the home and the workplace where community happened. Mainini Saru's market. Burial societies. Church fellowships. Sports clubs. Residents' associations. The local store where people lingered long enough to exchange stories, seek advice, or simply be known.

These spaces rarely attracted attention because they were simply part of everyday life. Yet they performed something essential. They transformed strangers into neighbours and neighbours into communities. They created trust. They gave people a sense that they were part of something larger than themselves.

Today, many of these spaces are weaker than they once were. Some have disappeared altogether, buried, like that market, under the weight of other priorities.

Economic pressure has played a major role. For many Zimbabweans, survival consumes almost every waking hour. Weekends that once belonged to social activities are increasingly devoted to side hustles. When people are constantly trying to make ends meet, participation in clubs, associations, and neighbourhood initiatives inevitably declines.

Migration has deepened the challenge.

Over the past two decades, millions of Zimbabweans have left in search of opportunity elsewhere. Their remittances have sustained countless households. Entire families depend on money sent from South Africa, the United Kingdom, Australia, and beyond.

Yet every departure creates a social gap.

Parents grow old without their children nearby. Friendship circles shrink. Communities lose their volunteers, their organisers, their mentors. Relationships that once depended on physical presence are forced to survive through screens.

Technology has softened the impact but has not eliminated it. A video call can connect people across continents. It cannot replace presence. A WhatsApp group can keep relatives informed. It cannot recreate a community.

This is because communication and connection are not the same thing. One involves the exchange of information. The other involves the sharing of life.

Modern Zimbabwe is rich in communication. It is growing poor in connection.

That distinction matters because strong communities depend on more than roads, buildings, and economic activity. They depend on relationships. People are more likely to help one another when they know one another. They are more likely to trust institutions when they trust their neighbours. They are more likely to volunteer, mentor, and participate in civic life when they feel they belong somewhere.

When those bonds weaken, the effects ripple outward quietly. A neighbourhood where nobody knows each other's name. A young person with four hundred online contacts and nobody to call at midnight. An elderly woman who wakes before dawn, dressed for a market that no longer exists. We speak often of infrastructure deficits. Perhaps we should also speak of community deficits because relationships connect people in ways that concrete never will.

Zimbabwe's future will require economic growth, investment, and innovation. But it will also require something less tangible and equally important: the slow, deliberate rebuilding of the social bonds that allow people to trust, cooperate, and belong.

Community cannot be downloaded. It cannot be manufactured by an algorithm. It is built through shared experiences, repeated interactions, and mutual responsibility.

Mainini Saru knows this. She knew it at the market in the argument over tomato prices, in Maiguru Chipo's gossip, in the mundane daily ritual of being among people who recognised her face. She knows it now, at five in the morning, in a house full of remittances and short of company, staring at a street dominated by tall walls and electric fences and no faces visible from anywhere.

The most important deficit we face may not appear in any financial statement. It is measured in empty community halls, shrinking social circles, and the quiet weight carried by people who are permanently connected but rarely truly seen.

Simbarashe Namusi is a peace, leadership, and governance scholar writing in his personal capacity.  

connection deficit in Zimbabwe