ZIMBABWE’S financial markets are often discussed through the lens of crisis. Yet the Absa Africa Financial Markets Index (AFMI) 2025 provides a more nuanced, evidence-based picture.
This picture is one that reveals clear areas of institutional strength and incremental progress, beyond the familiar narrative of persistent constraints. Published in October 2025 and launched in London, the Absa Africa Financial Markets Index (AFMI) 2025 benchmarks financial market development across 29 African economies, covering roughly 80% of Africa’s gross domestic product and population.
The index is produced by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, an independent global think tank, in partnership with Absa Group, drawing on quantitative analysis and surveys of African central banks, regulators and market practitioners.
For Zimbabwe, the AFMI 2025 results provide a rare opportunity to move beyond anecdote and ideology, and to engage with evidence. The data paints a more balanced picture than the dominant crisis narrative suggests. It shows a financial system constrained by credibility and market depth rather than one defined by institutional absence or regulatory failure.
Measured progress in difficult year
In AFMI 2025, Zimbabwe recorded an overall score of 46, up from 44 in 2024, improving its ranking from 17th to 15th out of 29 African countries. This improvement occurred in a year when global financial conditions tightened sharply and only 10 African markets improved their overall scores. This matters.
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In relative terms, Zimbabwe is no longer positioned among the weakest financial systems on the continent. It now sits in the lower middle segment, closer to reforming peers than to structurally fragile markets.
Where Zim performs better than assumed
The AFMI data challenges several entrenched assumptions about Zimbabwe’s financial system. On market transparency, tax and regulatory environment, Zimbabwe scored 82, placing it within the top 10 African markets on this pillar.
It outperformed a number of countries often perceived as more investable, including, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda and Namibia. This reflects relatively strong disclosure practices, regulatory frameworks and reporting standards.
From a public policy perspective, this finding is significant. It indicates that Zimbabwe’s regulatory architecture is largely functional.
From a national branding perspective, it directly contradicts the perception of systemic opacity that often dominates external commentary.
Zimbabwe also recorded a mid table score of 69 on macroeconomic environment and transparency. While macroeconomic outcomes remain volatile, AFMI distinguishes clearly between outcomes and transparency.
Zimbabwe’s challenge is, therefore, not the absence of data or disclosure, but confidence in the durability and consistency of policy outcomes. Pension fund development is another area of relative strength. With a score of 36, Zimbabwe sits in the middle tier on this pillar.
Across Africa, AFMI consistently shows that domestic institutional investors, particularly pension funds, are the backbone of market depth and resilience.
Zimbabwe has a base that can be expanded if long-term value preservation is restored. On legal standards and enforceability, Zimbabwe scored 40, placing it on par with Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique and Lesotho.
This suggests that the constraint is not the absence of law, but predictability and confidence in enforcement.
Binding constraints remain clear
Where Zimbabwe continues to underperform is equally evident. Market depth remains the most significant weakness. Zimbabwe scored 16 on this pillar, reflecting thin liquidity, limited instruments and a small market size. These factors constrain capital formation and increase the cost of entry and exit for investors.
Access to foreign exchange is the second major constraint. Zimbabwe scored 33, weighed down by low foreign exchange liquidity and relatively weak reserve adequacy, low import cover, the lowest in the index. This pillar is particularly sensitive to investor confidence and has an outsized influence on risk pricing.
Together, these two constraints explain why Zimbabwe’s financial markets continue to be discounted despite relatively strong performance on transparency and regulatory indicators.
Zimbabwe in the African context
AFMI 2025 shows a continent clearly stratified by credibility and depth. At the top sit South Africa and Mauritius, with deep, liquid markets and long standing institutional confidence.
The upper middle tier includes Uganda, Nigeria, Namibia, Botswana and Ghana, markets that have benefitted from sustained reform momentum and clearer policy signalling.
Zimbabwe, with a score of 46, now sits above the lowest tier and within reach of several mid table markets. This positioning is important because investors allocate capital based on relative trajectories rather than absolutes.
On that measure, Zimbabwe has stabilised and begun to edge forward.
The core policy lesson
The central lesson from AFMI is consistent across countries and over time. Policy credibility precedes market depth. Markets deepen not because reforms are announced, but because reforms persist long enough for confidence to compound.
Zimbabwe’s AFMI profile shows institutions that can operate, regulators that can supervise and frameworks that can support markets.
What remains fragile is confidence duration. This is the length of time investors, firms and households believe the rules will remain stable.
Therefore, ours is not necessarily a technical problem. It can be a policy and signalling challenge, which honestly I believe is easy to correct if there is collective willpower to do so.
National economic branding matters
Here, Zimbabwe lags not in intent but in narrative discipline. Successful African reformers align policy, regulation and communication into a coherent and repeatable economic story.
Zimbabwe’s signals have often been fragmented, creating uncertainty even where frameworks exist.
A credible national financial markets brand for Zimbabwe should rest on three principles. First, predictability as a policy value, with fewer changes, clearly communicated and sustained over time.
Second is transparency as a reputational asset, which is an area where Zimbabwe already performs relatively well and should lean into more deliberately.
Third, reform sequencing over reform volume, prioritising stability before depth. Markets do not require perfection. They require consistency.
Why this matters for growth and livelihoods
Financial markets are not abstract scorecards. When they function, firms access cheaper capital, infrastructure is financed more sustainably, small and medium enterprises grow and formalise, pension savings retain value and employment expands.
The AFMI 2025 data tells a story of measured progress under constraint. Zimbabwe’s challenge is no longer institutional absence.
It is policy credibility and narrative consistency. If policy substance is aligned with disciplined communication and allowed to endure, the gains will extend far beyond index scores.
They will be reflected in investment flows, business expansion and improved livelihoods. In financial markets, credibility is the ultimate currency. Zimbabwe still has the opportunity to build more of it.
Mambure is a business leader and public policy scholar. He is a Chartered Marketer and Fellow of the CIM (UK)and holds an MBA, Master in Public Policy and Government and an MSc in Marketing. He can be contacted on dnmambure@gmail.com