Country statistics

159 out of 189 in Human Development Index rankings (UNDP, 2022)  

$2,060 Average annual salary per person (World Bank, 2023) 

42% of the population live in extreme poverty (WFP) 

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country in Southern Africa between South Africa and Zambia with a population of 16.8 million people (Worldometer, 2025).  

42% of the population live in extreme poverty with 26.7% of children having stunted growth (WFP). Widespread poverty has significant implications for access to housing and housing affordability. 37% of Zimbabwe’s population live in urban areas, with 1 in 5 people living in slums with no access to electricity or running water (World Bank, 2023; Africa Housing Finance, 2023).  

The housing situation is as a result of decades of mis-spending and governmental corruption. Despite efforts to improve housing, the sector is still plagued by corruption. (Reuters, 2018). 

Despite this, Zimbabwe in 2022 and 2023 was one of the fastest growing economies in Southern Africa due to an expansion in agriculture, mining and the service industry, which has been supported by investment. This contracted in 2024 because of the impact of droughts, lower mining prices and domestic economic instability (World Bank). 

This is a substantial shift from the period of hyperinflation in the country, when inflation reached 837% year-on-year in 2020 (Sky News, 2022).  

The wide-spread droughts in Southern Africa in 2024 also impacted the country, which left 7.7 million people facing severe food shortages. Many agricultural workers were also left with nothing after their crops were ruined (BBC, 2024). 

The country was ruled by Robert Mugabe for 37 years, who after resigning after a military coup in 2017, left a legacy of inequality (The Guardian, 2019). 

Mugabe’s land reforms in 2000 redistributed land and property from White-owned farms to tens of thousands of Black people in an attempt to correct colonial distribution. However, farmers were only granted deeds to the land in 2024 under a new government policy, meaning that they were effectively landowners only in name, rather than having any legal right to the land which was still deemed as being owned by the government. The new government has also said White farmers will be compensated for their loss of property (AP News, 2024).  

Thousands are also at risk of forced evictions as the government wants to make way for commercial property developments (Amnesty International, 2021). This particularly impacts members of minority groups and tribes, such as 13,000 people of the Shangani minority, who were evicted from their community in 2021 to make way for agricultural development (Human Rights Watch, 2021). 

Zimbabwe is one of four member countries that are part of the Football to Protect Vulnerable Women from Exploitation programme which has created and implemented a new curriculum for men and women to tackle gender-based violence. This is a two-year project supported by the FIFA Foundation.