Adjusting Focus: Zimbabwe

America’s economic crisis. Iran’s election turmoil. These have been every major newscast’s top two stories, in some form or another, for nearly a week now. And it’s no wonder-these are two compelling stories that involve a high degree of both global importance and uncertainty regarding where they are headed.

Yet flipping through a recent Economist reminded me that any 30-minute newscast, or even a 24-hour news channel, is highly subject to tunnel vision, through no fault of their own.

An estimated 95% of Zimbabweans do not have formal employment, one of the worst rates in the world. They recently accepted the U.S. dollar after the Zimbabwean currency underwent hyperinflation that reached a high of five hundred billion percent. And they have an estimated GDP per capita of about $200, the world’s lowest. For a few more human numbers, the people of Zimbabwe have a life expectancy of around 46 years, in the global worst 15, and an adult HIV/AIDS prevalence of 15.3%, in the global worst ten.

On the political front, the reformist Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, won elections in March 2008, yet have since entered into a power-sharing agreement that the neo-fascist President, Robert Mugabe, and his ZANU-PF party continue to violate. Mugabe and cronies have used the power they have amassed over the years to shut the MDC out of just about every functional area of the Zimbabwean government, paying no regard to the agreement the South African Development Community is supposed to enforce (and, thus far, has not) or, more importantly, to the will the Zimbabwean people expressed clearly over a year ago.

I don’t mean to suggest that there is some grave injustice done by news organizations in covering the U.S. and Iran instead of every other place in the world that has problems. But it does put things in perspective, after hearing about the grave state of U.S. unemployment and the grave political situation in Iran, to be reminded that there is a country suffering from both consistent unemployment over ten times as great as ours and rule by a man and party with no true democratic mandate. And it puts things in even more perspective to learn that the only “stimulus package” the MDC finance minister has called for is $8.5 billion over three years to jumpstart Zimbabwe’s still-struggling economy. That’s just over 1 percent of the $787 billion dollars in the stimulus bill President Obama signed in February.

Let’s hope that, in our fascination with our own problems and those that get the most news coverage, that we find time to remember others who are in need. And perhaps, with more global attention focused on it, Zimbabwe will find the means to hold Mugabe accountable for his actions and piece together the global chump change it needs to begin the path to development.