I have just returned from Jordan where I spent the large part of last week meeting colleagues from around the world.
DEVELOP ME
TAPIWA GOMO
While Jordan lies in a very different geographical area with Zimbabwe, I could not resist drawing some comparisons.
There are some few lessons there which made me think maybe we are poor because we are just stupid.
Jordan emerged from the post-World War I colonial division of West Asia by Britain and France.
In 1946, Jordan became an independent sovereign State officially known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan.
This makes Jordan 34 years older than Zimbabwe, but the fact is both countries were once under colonial administration.
Unlike Zimbabwe, Jordan is largely a desert, but its economy is ranked by the World Bank as a middle income country, with the majority of its population living on more than above $3 a day.
This makes a mockery of our own administration which prefers to compose tunes of how the country is endowed with natural resources from minerals, fertile soil to a hardworking and skilled labour and yet its people are among the poorest in the world.
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In fact, where performance is demanded, our leadership is quick to offer a litany of excuses, including how Britain is having sleepless nights thinking about how to recolonise Zimbabwe.
Perhaps it is time we admitted that we are poor because we are stupid, so God help us cast away the demons of stupidity.
Unlike most countries in the Arab region, Jordan’s economy is challenged by insufficient oil and other natural resources, including water supplies as most of the water bodies around it are heavily salted.
Within such a discouraging environment, its unemployment rate is pegged at around 13%, against few natural resources and a small industrial base.
Like most countries whose economies depend on limited availability of natural resources, Jordan has suffered from brain drain over the decades, losing thousands of its skilled workers every year. But Jordanians have mastered the art of converting negatives into positives without looking to blaming anyone.
Where they cannot create employment, they have allowed their skilled labour to search for employment elsewhere and inculcated a culture of people who love their country; remittances from Jordanian expatriates are a major source of foreign currency, part of which has been used to finance tourism — one of the fastest-growing industries.
In 2010, tourism accounted for 12% of the country’s gross national product, having received eight million visitors and culminating into $4,4 billion income.
Perhaps their difference with us is that our thinking depends a lot on what we have, such as soil, minerals etc, as the only source of hope, development and prosperity.
But for Jordanians, it is a different ball game altogether.
They are aware of their limitations and they will not whine over them and blame other countries for not doing them a favour.
They have used the income from their small industry, expatriate remittances and tourism earnings to finance the diversification of their economy.
One such initiative came from the realisation Jordan is a transit country for goods and services to the Palestinian territories and Iraq, and for that they have ensured and maintained a well-developed transportation infrastructure.
To date, Jordan is ranked as the 35th country with best transport infrastructure in the world, one of the highest rankings in the developing world. Did you also know that our beautiful Zimbabwe also lies in a transit zone which can potentially connect so many countries in the East, West, North and South in the East and Southern African region?
Did you also know that if someone in government decides to put on their thinking caps, the transport industry, not the kombis, but the main road networks alone can be a huge source of income and employment?
But because we have allowed our roads and railway lines to deteriorate beyond use, transport companies now prefer to go via Mozambique and use the sea to transport goods to different locations.
For failing to do such a simple thing, we blame Britain, the US, sanctions and Morgan Tsvangirai.
Yes, instead of utilising opportunities, we are quick to find excuses and if excuses can be converted into goods and services, surely my beloved country would have been one of the richest countries in the region.
Sometimes, I just wonder why others get it right and we always get it wrong.
Sometimes, if our problems are because we started poor or we are just stupid. Sometimes, I just wonder if those in leadership who claim to be clever are really clever or just people in power wearing expensive suits without a clue of what they are supposed to do.
