It’s now official, Zimbabwe under siege from an Elnino inspired drought. Droughts have impacted the country since time immemorial but the latest wave has rattled everyone. Record high temperatures across the nation but in most areas—farmers yet to plant seeds 2 weeks away from Christmas—and this could be a new record.

We still remain hopeful that the skies could open up as the implications of a drought are dire especially when we have not fully recovered from the Covid-19 shock.

So what are the negative effects coming in the next months?

1. Food Shortages: Food shortages definitely obvious leading to food shortages inspired inflation.
2. Loss of Income (Farmers): Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy with hundreds of thousands of farmers directly involved in various farming operations. They will take a direct knock from drought leading to loss of income and livelihoods.
3. Loss of Income (Value Chain): All activities that support agriculture will absorb the drought impact as there will be far much less production. Few will invest in inputs and obviously output support industries in the direct line of fire.
4. Power Generation: Unless more rains come, or a Cyclone comes in the direction of the Zambezi River Basin, Kariba expected to have low water levels thus impacting on power generation. Therefore there is need to watch closely inflow into Kariba. Your power bill expected to be affected by the drought.
5. Budget Deficit and Trade Deficit: We will need more funds for the importation of food and judging by the 2024 National Budget—we may not have adequately budgeted for the impending drought. Food imports to worsen the trade deficit as we channel more resources to food importation.

Not looking good for the SADC region in 2024 and unless a miracle happens—we are in deep trouble.

However entrepreneurs well known for solving problems and some could even do extremely well during the anticipated drought period. Opportunities include; (1) Food Import Opportunities Value Chain (2) Alternative Energy Solutions (3) Borehole Drilling (4) Water Bowsers and delivery services (5) Drought resistant crops.

Another interesting angle is that whenever rivers dry up, enterprising locals scour the river beds and bump into minerals such as gold, diamond and other precious minerals. Mining which usually takes a dip due to high water levels, could continue full scale this time around.

Despite a predicted drought, flooding could be experienced in some areas and also factor in the predicted cyclones season from end of January to end of March.

The small businesses sector dominates the economy in Zimbabwe and therefore its natural that the biggest forums in the country will come from this sector. However is it easy to form a well networked forum in Zimbabwe?

This is complex science as networking total strangers in business takes ages. It is easy to form a Facebook Page and Whatsapp too and these pages can fill up within a few months to years. However most of those who join have a focus on selling—any other business is not material.

Therefore finding a small business forum that attracts at least 50 members on a regular basis is almost impossible. For a start, most small business owners are busy and weigh the costs of attendance of a meeting especially where no monetary incentives such as perdiems are offered.

To hustle and earn an extra dollar or the opportunity cost of attending a business seminar or event?

With more than 70% of the economy dominated by small businesses or informal sector or 10 million people. Zimbabwe should have at least 10 strong small businesses forums with membership of above 200,000 each. Strong well funded forums with presence in all the 10 provinces.

It should not be difficult to pick random members from the street and ask them to name at least 3 forums. But this is not the case due to a plethora of reasons.

The good news is that The Zimbabwe Business Ideas and Network has been trying its best to network members over the past decade. We have made considerable progress in this area through leveraging on digital platforms where we now have an active 90,000 members on Facebook and 20,000 members on Whatsapp.

In 2023 we made great progress with meetings in new areas such as Mutare, Bulawayo and Cape Town. Although we recommend self sustenance of chapters—however members still expect the Harare Office to come and give support. As soon as we leave, no meaningful meetings or events take place.

Looking at the 2023 ZBIN Events, we believe the great work and support from members make us the biggest forum in the land although there is still great improvement required in many areas. Our members need access to capital as a top priority.

Our Mumpreneurs Forum launch in April attended by 150 members and showing the power of women in networking.

Women entrepreneurs support has been phenomenal.

Our third Mumpreneurs Markets on 25 November 2023.

Our first chapter meeting in Cape Town held in August 2023 and attended by 20 members.

Our biggest ever Bulawayo meeting held in June 2023

Introducing new initiatives always a challenge but the Sports Day was a success.

Again women entrepreneurs helped to contribute to the success of the Sports Day.

We conducted 3 Sports Days in 2023 with the first one in March, second one in June and third one in October.

Our ZBIN SA Chapter has been holding regular forum events for the past 5 years.