Where does the money from Zimbabwe’s mineral wealth go? Who manages it, and how can communities track it?
The Follow the Money Toolkit is a practical resource designed to help communities, civil society organisations and citizens understand and monitor public revenues, expenditures and resource flows linked to mining.
Produced by the Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG) in collaboration with the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD) under the ENABLE Project – Enhancing Advocacy and Capacity Building of CBOs and CSOs for Natural Resource Governance and Community-led Engagement in Zimbabwe, the toolkit simplifies complex public finance and mining revenue issues and provides practical tools for community monitoring and accountability.
The guide takes readers through public finance, mining revenue, following the money, where to find answers, community monitoring tools, case studies and taking action.
It is designed to help communities move from simply asking questions about mineral wealth to finding information, tracking public resources and demanding greater transparency and accountability.
This toolkit was made possible through financial support from the European Union (EU) and support from Bread for the World.
CNRG and ZIMCODD acknowledge the valuable contribution and support of the project partners, communities and civil society organisations whose experiences and insights informed this resource.
The toolkit seeks to strengthen the capacity of communities and civil society to track public revenues, expenditures and resource flows, and to promote transparency, accountability and meaningful participation in natural resource governance.
The contents of this publication are the responsibility of CNRG and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union or Bread for the World.
FOLLOW THE MONEY. DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY.
Read the toolkit. Use the tools. Ask the questions. Follow the money.
By Staff Reporter
Zimbabwe’s decision to suspend exports of antimony and tungsten has brought renewed attention to two minerals classified by the Government as critical to the country’s mineral development strategy.
The Ministry of Mines and Mining Development says the suspension is intended to promote local value addition and beneficiation, ensuring that more value is retained within Zimbabwe before the minerals reach international markets.
Antimony, however, should not be confused with lithium. It is a separate mineral, commonly occurring in the form of stibnite, and Zimbabwe’s known antimony occurrences are largely associated with gold-bearing geological formations.
Antimony has historically been mined or recorded in areas including Kadoma, Kwekwe, Shurugwi, Mberengwa and Bubi. The Kadoma area is particularly notable, with the historic Cam and Motor mine having produced both gold and antimony.
Tungsten has also been associated with several of Zimbabwe’s mineral belts, including areas around Kadoma, Kwekwe, Shurugwi, Mberengwa and Bikita.
While the export suspension could encourage investment in local processing, questions remain over who will be able to participate in the new value chains.
Mining and natural resource governance advocate Hyde Chatyoka cautioned against an approach that could unintentionally exclude small-scale and historically disadvantaged miners from opportunities created by the policy.
“I am against the blanket export bans that lock out the historically disadvantaged persons from leveraging on resource availability in their communities and I support affirmative bans that force those who have the capacity to develop beneficiation industries locally,” said Chatyoka.
His position highlights an important distinction between blanket export bans and targeted beneficiation policies.
A blanket ban could prevent smaller producers from accessing international markets without necessarily giving them access to processing facilities, finance or technology. An affirmative beneficiation policy, on the other hand, could require companies with the financial and technical capacity to process minerals locally while creating opportunities for smaller producers to participate in the domestic value chain.
For Zimbabwe, this distinction is particularly important in communities where mining provides livelihoods but local processing infrastructure remains limited.
The Government therefore faces a challenge beyond simply stopping exports. It must create the conditions for local beneficiation while ensuring that small-scale miners, local businesses, workers and mining communities are not pushed out of the emerging critical-minerals economy.
The success of the antimony and tungsten policy will ultimately depend not only on how much mineral Zimbabwe processes locally, but on who controls, participates in and benefits from the value created.
By Donald Nyarota
A diamond may be forever. Its name, apparently, is negotiable.
The latest quarrel in the diamond industry is over whether diamonds made in factories should be called “lab-grown” or “synthetic”. The African Diamond Producers Association (ADPA) wants “synthetic” to become the exclusive international descriptor for diamonds produced through industrial processes, while natural diamonds retain the familiar 4Cs grading system and carat measurement.
There is also a push that the Kimberley Process publicly state its position on the terminology used to distinguish natural diamonds from diamonds produced through industrial processes.
A recent letter penned by Ahmed Bin Sulayem Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) signals this intent, because “because India, China and the United States, three of the most consequential jurisdictions in the production, manufacturing, retailing and consumption of these products, all recognise and use “laboratory-grown diamond” within their respective regulatory, technical or industry-association frameworks.”
For Africa’s diamond producers, like Zimbabwe, this is not merely semantics. It is about protecting the value of a natural resource that supports national economies.
This debate carries an additional and uncomfortable question: what exactly is play if the countries defend the value of natural diamonds? The answer cannot simply be a name.
It must be the value of the entire diamond economy, a value chain that remains under scrutiny over legacy oversights and illicit financial flows.
Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond fields were discovered in 2006 and rapidly became one of the world’s significant alluvial diamond deposits. Today, the country remains a natural-diamond producer, with the United States Geological Survey recording more than 5.2m carats of production worth about US$164m in 2024.
However the paradox of Marange has always been that extraordinary geological wealth has coexisted with extraordinary questions about transparency, accountability and community benefit.
Research by the Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG) and the Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition has documented how communities around Chiadzwa, Mukwada and Chipindirwe have remained poorly served despite the enormous value extracted from their land. The civil-society coalition noted that Marange generated US$124m from 4.2m carats in 2019, while communities still struggled with roads, water and access to basic services.
That history is not irrelevant to the laboratory-grown debate. It is the debate.
Zimbabwe’s diamond industry is now confronting a dramatically different market. State owned miner the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) told parliament in 2026 that rough-diamond prices had fallen sharply from their post-pandemic peak. It stated that as a result Zimbabwe’s distinctive Marange stones were fetching roughly US$22–34 per carat, compared with around US$100 for better-quality rough from some other producers.
Diamond exports were worth about US$164m in 2024, down 46% year-on-year despite an increase in extraction volumes.
The pressure is not simply coming from consumers changing their minds about diamonds. Laboratory-grown stones are changing the economics of the market itself, leaving Zimbabwe with a difficult proposition.
If a natural diamond is to command a premium over a laboratory-grown diamond, Zimbabwe must be able to demonstrate why. Rarity alone may not be enough. Tradition may not be enough. And certainly, a regulatory decision to call one product “synthetic” and another “natural” will not be enough.
Zimbabwe’s strongest selling point should be that natural diamonds create value far beyond the stone itself.
That means employment. Export earnings. Government revenue. Local business opportunities. Community development. Environmental rehabilitation. And, crucially, a demonstrable share of mineral wealth reaching the people whose land produces it.
This is where Marange remains unfinished business. Even the ill-fated Community Share Ownership Trust (CSOT) remain an indictment on the government and how it has failed to provide a tangible community benefit sharing model.
CNRG’s recent work in Manicaland argues that communities have long been excluded from meaningful benefit-sharing despite the province’s enormous mineral wealth. A 2026 academic study similarly describes the Marange experience as one in which the adverse effects of alluvial diamond mining have outweighed the benefits for host communities.
There is therefore a danger in Africa’s current linguistic campaign.
If producers try to defend natural diamonds primarily by making laboratory-grown diamonds sound inferior, they risk avoiding the more difficult question: has the natural-diamond industry done enough to justify the premium it demands?
Zimbabwe cannot credibly answer that question with branding alone, it needs transparency and accountability, virtues it sorely lacks at the moment.
How many diamonds are produced? At what price? How much does the Treasury receive? What royalties are paid? What happens to the money? What do communities receive? How much land has been rehabilitated? What obligations do mining companies have to people displaced by extraction?
These are not peripheral questions, they are part of the product and indeed a part of the value chain.
A natural diamond should be able to carry a story that a laboratory cannot manufacture that its value is connected to a finite geological resource and that its extraction contributes visibly and fairly to the development of the country from which it came.
That would be a formidable competitive advantage, but it requires diamond producers like Zimbabwe to turn natural rarity into social value.
The alternative is worrying. If consumers are told that natural diamonds are better simply because they are natural, while communities in places such as Marange continue to question whether diamond wealth has transformed their lives, the industry’s narrative becomes increasingly difficult to defend.
There is also a broader economic lesson.
The global natural-diamond industry is under pressure. Natural diamond prices have fallen sharply while laboratory-grown diamonds have become dramatically cheaper. The consequences are already visible in southern Africa, where the downturn is threatening major mining operations and thousands of jobs.
It presents a dual battle, the first is in the marketplace, to convince consumers that natural diamonds possess qualities worth paying for.
The second is at home: ensuring that the economic value of those diamonds is distributed in a manner that gives citizens and mining communities a reason to defend the industry.
The second battle may ultimately determine the first. If African producers, like Zimbabwe. Angola and Botswana, want the world to believe that a natural diamond is worth more than a laboratory-grown one, it must demonstrate that the natural diamond value chain itself is worth more.
That means moving beyond the language of scarcity to the language of accountability.
Zimbabwe’s Marange has already taught the world that a resource can be extraordinarily valuable underground and yet fail to produce proportionate prosperity above it.
The next chapter of the diamond story should be different, and producers should not merely ask consumers to pay more for natural diamonds. It should give them a reason to.
Zimbabwe’s natural resources continue to attract investment, generate exports and shape national economic policy. Yet across the mining sector, one question remains stubbornly unresolved: who ultimately benefits from the wealth beneath our feet?
This edition of The Weekly examines that question from several angles.
Our lead opinion piece, What Is in a Name? Lab-Grown or Synthetic Diamonds, looks beyond the growing international debate over how laboratory-produced diamonds should be described. For Zimbabwe and other African diamond producers, the real challenge is not simply protecting the reputation of natural diamonds. It is demonstrating that the natural-diamond value chain delivers genuine value to workers, communities and citizens. The experience of Marange reminds us that geological wealth does not automatically translate into shared prosperity.
The same question of value runs through Zimbabwe’s decision to suspend exports of antimony and tungsten. Local beneficiation is an important ambition, but beneficiation must not become another mechanism for excluding those who have historically depended on small-scale mining. The debate should therefore move beyond export bans towards an inclusive value chain in which local producers, businesses, workers and communities can participate.
This edition also brings the human cost of extraction into sharper focus. In Lukosi, Hwange, women described how mining has altered household economies, increased unpaid care responsibilities and created new forms of vulnerability. These experiences remind us that the impacts of mining cannot be measured only through production figures, investment statistics or export earnings. They must also be measured through what happens to families, livelihoods and community relationships.
Zimbabwe’s growing role in international discussions on land degradation and drought offers another important lesson. Diplomatic leadership is valuable, but declarations must eventually be translated into action at home. Communities living with degraded land, water shortages and declining livelihoods need more than international commitments; they need resources, participation and accountable institutions.
The reported labour dispute at Kamativi brings this principle into the energy transition itself. Renewable energy projects are an important part of Zimbabwe’s development ambitions, but cleaner energy cannot be built on questionable labour practices or inadequate worker protections. Development must remain people-centred, regardless of whether the project involves diamonds, critical minerals or solar power.
The poetry closing this edition captures the central message perhaps more powerfully than any policy document: communities should not be expected to simply watch as their land is transformed into economic wealth from which they remain excluded.
The recurring thread across these stories is therefore accountability.
Zimbabwe does not lack natural resources. What remains unfinished is building systems that ensure those resources generate broad-based prosperity, protect communities and workers, respect the environment and give citizens a meaningful voice in decisions affecting their land and livelihoods.
As the country pursues beneficiation, critical-mineral development, renewable energy and greater influence in global environmental diplomacy, the question should not only be how much value can Zimbabwe extract from its resources?
It should also be: How much value can Zimbabwe create for its people? That is the measure that ultimately matters.
Communities, accountability and the choices ahead
The 30th edition of The Weekly arrives at an important moment for Zimbabwe’s natural-resource sector. As demand for critical minerals grows and new extraction projects continue to attract attention, the country is facing choices that will shape its economy, environment and communities for generations to come. At the centre of those choices is a fundamental question: who gets to shape the decisions that affect land, water, livelihoods and mineral wealth?
This edition examines efforts to move natural-resource governance closer to the communities most affected by it. We look at the ENABLE Project’s work to strengthen local organisations and support community-led advocacy. The project places participation, transparency, financial accountability and locally defined priorities at the centre of its next phase, recognising that organisations should facilitate community action rather than speak on behalf of communities.
We also consider Zimbabwe’s emerging rare-earth opportunity and the choices that must be made before extraction begins. Zimbabwe is understood to hold deposits of all seventeen rare-earth elements, yet commercial mining has not started. That gives the country a valuable opportunity to establish the terms of ownership, processing, environmental protection, human rights, local employment and value addition before the first truck leaves a mine. With global demand for critical minerals accelerating, Zimbabwe can negotiate from a position of strength, but only if policy and enforcement keep pace with international interest.
Transparency is another central concern. A new Critical Minerals Data Observatory is moving towards finalisation after consultations with mining-affected communities and stakeholders in Hwange. The proposed platform aims to make information about production, ownership, licences, exports, royalties, revenues, environmental compliance and community grievances more accessible. For communities that often see the impacts of mining without access to basic information about the operations around them, reliable data can be an important foundation for demanding accountability.
The edition further brings into focus the often-hidden costs of extraction. New research on women’s livelihoods in Zvishavane highlights the loss of agricultural land, pressure on water sources, disrupted livelihoods, unequal access to consultation and compensation, and the heightened risks faced by women in mining areas. At the same time, the research shows women building resilience through savings groups, water-monitoring initiatives, mining networks and community advocacy.
We also revisit the long-delayed Ziminya Dam in Nkayi, a project first proposed in 1952 and still incomplete more than seven decades later. For local communities, the dam represents far more than an infrastructure contract: it carries hopes of reliable water, agricultural development, employment and improved livelihoods. Its unfinished state raises difficult questions about public promises, project delivery and the meaning of official progress figures on the ground.
As Southern Africa approaches another potentially difficult dry season, this edition also explores the relationship between climate risk and resource governance. Drought becomes more dangerous when rivers are polluted, wetlands are degraded, boreholes are unreliable and communities have already lost access to land and water. Climate preparedness must therefore include strong environmental enforcement, transparent monitoring of mining activities and meaningful participation by communities in decisions affecting their resources.
From Lukosi, we share a story of women turning exclusion into collective action. Their decision to meet regularly, document the impacts they face and organise around practical demands is a reminder that affected communities are not merely recipients of decisions or victims of harm. They are organisers, advocates and essential partners in building a fairer resource future.
Taken together, the stories in this edition underline the importance of community-centred governance. Zimbabwe’s mineral wealth can contribute to development, but only when extraction is matched by transparency, environmental responsibility, gender equality, fair participation and respect for the rights of the people living closest to natural resources.
Read the 30th edition of The Weekly for reporting, analysis and community perspectives on the choices shaping Zimbabwe’s natural-resource governance.
New CNRG research highlights the growing social, economic and environmental pressures facing women in mining-affected communities.
Mining remains central to Zimbabwe’s economy, but new research by the Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG), in partnership with the Zimbabwe Gender Commission (ZGC), with support from the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Cape Town, shows that the benefits of extraction are not always matched by the realities experienced by communities.
The study, which engaged 48 women across mining-affected communities in Zvishavane, found that mining is contributing to the loss of agricultural land, pressure on water sources, disruption of livelihoods and increased household vulnerability.
Women reported that environmental degradation has made it harder to farm, raise livestock and access safe water. The impacts are compounded by the additional unpaid care and household responsibilities that women carry.
The research also identifies significant gender gaps in mining governance. Women reported limited participation in consultations, exclusion from compensation processes, inadequate access to information and weak mechanisms for raising and resolving grievances. Reports of sexual harassment and exploitation, particularly in artisanal mining spaces, further expose women to heightened vulnerability.
A key concern emerging from the study is the gap between formal governance processes and lived realities. While institutions point to environmental assessments, inspections and consultation procedures, communities continue to experience weak enforcement and limited opportunities to influence decisions affecting their land and livelihoods.
Yet women are not simply victims of these impacts. Across Zvishavane, they are building resilience through savings groups, water monitoring initiatives, women’s mining networks and community advocacy.
The research calls for gender-responsive mining governance that strengthens environmental monitoring, makes consultation meaningful, ensures transparent and equitable compensation, improves access to information and gives women a stronger voice in decisions affecting their communities.
Key message
Zimbabwe’s mineral wealth must not come at the expense of the women and communities living closest to extraction. Mining governance must move beyond procedural compliance towards meaningful participation, environmental justice and gender equality.
Read the full research report:
Impact of Mining on Women’s Livelihoods in Zvishavane, Midlands Province
Conducted by the Centre for Natural Resource Governance in partnership with the Zimbabwe Gender Commission, with support from the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Cape Town.
By Staff Reporter
There is growing concern over continued mining activities at Toronto Mines Pvt Ltd in Mutare, despite a government directive ordering the immediate cessation of mining and related operations at the site.
A cease-and-desist order issued by the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development on 9 August 2026 directed the company to immediately stop all mining, processing and allied activities following a high-level inspection of the mine on 8 August. The order cited unapproved mining activities and the unlawful erection of an elution boiler without the requisite approvals, safety inspections and formal commissioning.
The directive further ordered the immediate decommissioning of the unapproved elution boiler and the removal and demobilisation of all mobile equipment, plant and machinery from the site within 14 calendar days, with the deadline set for 22 August 2026.
However, a recent site visit has established that while there has been partial compliance with the government order, some mining-related activities appear to be continuing clandestinely, reportedly taking place under the cover of darkness in the middle of the night.
The discovery raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the enforcement measures and whether the cessation order is being adequately monitored.
Partial compliance, but operations persist
The removal or cessation of some equipment and activities indicates that the company has taken steps towards complying with the government directive. However, compliance cannot be considered complete while mining or processing activities continue outside the hours and conditions under which authorities can effectively monitor them.
The reported night-time operations are particularly concerning because they make it difficult for regulators, surrounding communities and other stakeholders to independently verify whether the cease-and-desist order is being fully observed.
The situation also highlights a broader challenge in Zimbabwe’s mining sector, where regulatory orders can lose their effectiveness when enforcement is inconsistent or insufficiently resourced.
A government directive to stop operations must mean precisely that: all operations must stop. Partial compliance cannot be allowed to become a means through which prohibited activities simply move underground or into the night.
Safety concerns cannot be ignored
The government’s original intervention was prompted, among other concerns, by the discovery of an unapproved elution boiler at the mine. According to the order, the equipment had been erected without the required design approvals, safety inspections or formal commissioning by the relevant inspectorate.
The government specifically warned that operating an unapproved pressure vessel presents serious occupational and public safety risks.
These concerns make continued clandestine operations even more troubling. Mining and mineral-processing activities involve significant risks to workers and surrounding communities, particularly where equipment has not undergone the required inspections and where operations are being conducted outside the oversight of regulatory authorities.
Government therefore has a responsibility not only to issue enforcement orders but also to ensure that such orders are actually implemented.
Government must enforce its own order
The Ministry of Mines and Mining Development and other relevant authorities should urgently follow up on the reported continued operations and establish the full extent of compliance with the cease-and-desist order.
Where violations are established, the government should take appropriate enforcement action in accordance with the law. This should include ensuring that all prohibited equipment is decommissioned and that mining and processing activities do not resume without the necessary approvals and safety requirements.
Effective enforcement is particularly important because allowing a mine to operate clandestinely after receiving a government closure order undermines the authority of the regulatory system and creates a dangerous precedent for other mining operations.
The enforcement process should also involve the Environmental Management Agency (EMA), the Zimbabwe Republic Police and relevant mining authorities to ensure that both environmental and public safety concerns are comprehensively addressed.
Closure must include an evacuation and rehabilitation plan
Beyond simply stopping operations, the government should require a clear mine closure, evacuation and rehabilitation plan for the site.
Any enforcement action should establish how workers and other people who may be exposed to hazards at the site will be safely evacuated or removed from areas presenting risks. This is particularly important where mining infrastructure, processing equipment, waste facilities, open workings or other hazardous structures remain on site.
The closure of a mine should not simply mean locking the gates and walking away.
There must be a clearly defined process for securing dangerous infrastructure, stabilising disturbed land, managing mine waste, preventing contamination of water sources and restoring the environment to a safe and stable condition.
Most importantly, the cost of rehabilitation should be borne by the mining company responsible for the environmental disturbance, rather than transferred to taxpayers or surrounding communities.The principle is straightforward: those who profit from extracting natural resources must also carry the responsibility and cost of addressing the damage caused by their operations.
Rehabilitation cannot be an afterthought
Mining leaves a physical footprint that can persist long after production has stopped. Excavations, waste dumps, tailings, contaminated soils, damaged vegetation and altered drainage systems can pose risks to communities and ecosystems for years if they are not properly rehabilitated.
Government should therefore ensure that rehabilitation obligations are clearly identified, costed and enforced before the company is allowed to undertake any further mining activities.Authorities should also establish mechanisms for monitoring rehabilitation and ensuring that the company does not simply abandon the site once profitable operations cease.
The situation at Christmas Pass provides an opportunity for government to demonstrate that regulatory orders are not merely administrative documents but instruments capable of protecting workers, communities and the environment.
The Cease-and-Desist order must be enforced in full. Partial compliance and clandestine night-time operations should not be allowed to undermine the government’s intervention. At the same time, closure must be accompanied by a credible evacuation, environmental management and rehabilitation programme, with the financial burden placed squarely on the mining company responsible.
The protection of people and the environment cannot depend on whether mining activities take place in broad daylight or under the cover of darkness.
Rivers are usually the great equalisers of cities. They carry water from one place to another, binding communities together and sustaining farms, livestock and ecosystems along their course. In Mutare, the Sakubva River has acquired a less flattering role: it has become a moving record of the city’s infrastructure failures.
By Donald Nyarota
A fresh complaint lodged on August 27 with the Minister of State for Manicaland, local Members of Parliament, the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) and the City of Mutare alleges that the Sakubva River, about 30km downstream from the city centre, is receiving continuous discharges of raw sewage and untreated industrial waste. Communities along the river are reportedly using the water for washing clothes and dishes, while livestock and other animals drink from it.
If verified, this is more than an environmental nuisance. It is a public-health and governance failure.
The particularly troubling fact is that there is little new about the complaint. The pollution of Mutare’s rivers was publicly exposed in 1998. A study by Jemitias Mapira, drawing on investigations conducted after that outcry, documented sewage overflows, industrial effluent, broken treatment equipment and other sources of pollution in the Sakubva River basin.
Twenty-eight years later, many of the same problems remain.
That longevity changes the nature of the problem. This is no longer simply a question of discovering who is polluting the river. It is a question of why successive authorities have failed to stop it.
Following the 1998 public outcry, the City of Mutare inspected streams within the Sakubva River basin and collected water samples. The investigation identified municipal sewage works, including Gimboki, as major sources of pollution. The treatment plant was reported to be operating above its design capacity of 23.5 million litres a day, while broken aerators, trunk-sewer blockages and delayed repairs allowed sewage spills to continue.
The city’s growth has only intensified the pressure. Infrastructure designed for a much smaller population cannot indefinitely serve a substantially larger urban population without significant investment. When treatment capacity fails to keep pace with population growth, pollution is not an accident. It becomes the predictable consequence of underinvestment.
Industrial activity adds another layer. Historical investigations identified effluent from paper manufacturing, timber processing, food-processing plants and breweries as contributors to pollution in the river system. Used oils, grease, fuel, scrap metal and other waste from workshops and garages were also identified.
Some of those industrial actors and circumstances may have changed since 1998.
The underlying governance question has not: Who is monitoring what enters the river, who is paying for it, and who is being held responsible when the system fails?
One issue deserves particular scrutiny: trade-waste fees. Businesses discharging industrial effluent into the municipal sewerage system are expected to pay applicable charges and comply with requirements governing the treatment and disposal of waste. But if the sewerage system itself is failing, citizens are entitled to ask where the money is going.
How much was billed in trade-waste fees in 2025? How much was collected? How much was spent on sewerage maintenance and upgrades? And what improvements can residents actually see?
The answer cannot be to allow companies to discharge untreated waste into rivers simply because municipal infrastructure is dysfunctional. Nor can industries evade their environmental responsibilities. The solution requires accountability on all sides: businesses must comply with environmental standards, the municipality must maintain the infrastructure for which it charges users, and regulators must enforce the law.
The Gimboki sewage treatment plant cannot carry an entire city indefinitely. Power cuts, ageing infrastructure, mechanical failures and inadequate capacity create a vicious cycle in which untreated sewage eventually finds its way into the river. The costs are then transferred from municipal accounts to communities through polluted water, degraded ecosystems, threats to livestock and potential public-health emergencies.
After 28 years, the Sakubva crisis should no longer be treated as a recurring complaint. EMA should urgently test the river, identify the pollutants and trace them to their sources. Government must enforce against polluters, while the City of Mutare and central government address the infrastructure deficit.
Where pollution is caused by identifiable industrial actors, the polluter-pays principle should apply, including responsibility for rehabilitation. Where failing public infrastructure is responsible, government must finance its repair.
Most importantly, authorities should publish a time-bound Sakubva River rehabilitation plan, with clear responsibilities, budgets and public reporting.
Mutare has known for 28 years that its river is sick. The real scandal is not that the problem has returned. It is that, after 28 years, there is still a debate about what needs to be done.
The Human Cost of Extractive Wealth
When the Ground Gives Way, Accountability Must Rise
Zimbabwe’s extractive economy is often discussed in the language of production, investment and national revenue. This edition of The Weekly asks a more fundamental question: who bears the cost when mineral wealth is extracted without adequate protection for people, communities and the environment?
The answer is increasingly visible in collapsed mine shafts, polluted water sources, displaced families, unsafe workplaces and women whose vulnerability is intensified by economic hardship and unequal power. The tragedies reported in the Central African Republic and Penhalonga are not merely unfortunate accidents. They are evidence of systems that continue to rely on the labour of artisanal miners while failing to provide the conditions necessary for them to work safely and with dignity.
Artisanal and small-scale miners are not a marginal feature of Zimbabwe’s gold economy. They are among its principal drivers. Yet the people who sustain this vital sector frequently operate without protective equipment, reliable geological information, access to finance, properly regulated sites or effective occupational health and safety systems. It is not enough for authorities to urge miners to be cautious when the wider structure leaves them with few safe choices. Responsibility must extend to governments, licence holders, financiers, sponsors, buyers and regulators who benefit from the mineral economy.
Formalisation must therefore become a practical programme of protection, not a bureaucratic exercise. A licence on its own cannot shore up an unstable shaft, provide emergency services or guarantee a fair price for gold. Formalisation must bring safer sites, enforceable standards, technical assistance, affordable finance, transparent markets and meaningful regulatory oversight. Most importantly, it must recognise artisanal miners as workers and economic actors whose lives are worth protecting—not as expendable inputs in a chain of profit.
The same principle applies to Zimbabwe’s rapidly expanding lithium industry. Lithium is central to the global transition towards cleaner energy, but the promise of a green future cannot excuse the destruction of local landscapes and livelihoods. Local beneficiation is important, yet processing minerals inside Zimbabwe will not, by itself, ensure that communities receive a fair share of the value created or that damaged land and water systems are restored.
A credible critical-minerals policy must place communities at the centre of decision-making. Environmental impact assessments must be independent and meaningful. Rehabilitation bonds should be secured before mining begins. Companies must be held responsible for restoring the land they disturb, and a fair share of mineral revenues should reach the communities that live closest to extraction sites. Consultation must take place before decisions are finalised, not after permits have been issued and the first trees have been cleared.
The concerns surrounding Toronto Mine reinforce the importance of enforcement. A cease-and-desist order is not a suggestion. If mining or processing continues clandestinely after an official directive to stop, the matter becomes larger than one company or one site: it becomes a test of whether regulatory institutions have the authority and capacity to enforce their own decisions. Partial compliance cannot be allowed to legitimise continued risk, particularly where unapproved processing equipment and potential threats to workers, neighbouring communities and the environment are involved.
Closure, moreover, must mean more than locking a gate. It must include the safe evacuation of workers, the securing of dangerous infrastructure, the management of waste and tailings, the stabilisation of disturbed land and a properly funded rehabilitation programme. The cost must not be transferred to taxpayers or communities after private profits have been realised.
This edition also reminds us that mining governance is inseparable from women’s rights and access to justice. In Penhalonga and Mutare, women described the combined effects of land dispossession, environmental degradation, economic marginalisation and gender-based violence. Their experiences demonstrate that the consequences of extraction are not distributed equally. Women often carry the heaviest social and economic burdens while having the least influence over decisions affecting their homes, livelihoods and safety.
Yet the edition offers more than a catalogue of failures. The women who moved from uncertainty to drafting their own petitions show the power of knowledge, collective action and accessible legal support. Community advocacy does not replace the duties of the state, but it can help communities claim rights, demand accountability and resist the normalisation of abuse. As the participants affirmed, no door should be treated as the wrong door when someone is seeking protection or justice.
The message running through these stories is clear. Zimbabwe cannot build a just mineral economy by measuring success only in tonnes produced, concentrate exported or gold delivered. The true measure of progress is whether mining improves lives, protects workers, respects communities, restores damaged environments and gives affected people a meaningful voice in decisions about their future.
The country has an opportunity to turn its mineral wealth into broad-based development. But that opportunity will be lost if extraction continues to be separated from accountability. No battery, bullion shipment or balance sheet is worth a miner’s life, a community’s safety or a ruined landscape. The wealth beneath Zimbabwe’s soil must not be secured at the expense of the people who live above it.
A Special Edition on the 2026 SADC People’s Summit
Welcome to this special edition of The Weekly, dedicated to the 2026 SADC People’s Summit and the critical conversations emerging from Southern Africa’s people’s movements, communities and civil society.
Held under the theme “The People’s SADC: Strengthening People’s Solidarity in a Polycrisis of Debt, Inequality, Conflict, Extractivism and Climate Change,” the summit brought together social movements, community organisations, workers, women, youth, farmers, informal traders and other civic actors to reflect on the challenges facing the region and to advance a people-centred vision for Southern Africa.
This edition captures some of the key debates from the summit, with particular attention to natural resource governance, critical minerals, resource-backed loans, regional industrialisation, civic space and climate justice. At the heart of these discussions was a fundamental question: Who benefits from Southern Africa’s vast natural and mineral wealth?
As global demand for critical minerals grows, Southern Africa is increasingly positioned at the centre of the global energy transition. Yet communities living in resource-rich areas continue to face displacement, environmental degradation, loss of livelihoods and exclusion from decisions affecting their land and resources. The summit provided an important platform for challenging an extractive model that risks reproducing historical inequalities under the banner of a green transition.
The discussions also highlighted the importance of regional cooperation. Delegates called for local beneficiation, regional value chains, decent employment and industrialisation, while demanding greater transparency in mining contracts, beneficial ownership and resource-backed financing.
Civic space emerged as another critical concern. Across the region, communities and civil society organisations continue to face restrictions when demanding accountability from governments and mining companies. A people-centred SADC must therefore protect the voices of communities, activists, workers and other citizens who seek to participate meaningfully in decisions about their resources and future.
This special edition seeks to bring these conversations closer to our readers, not simply as a record of what happened at the summit, but as a reflection on the choices confronting Southern Africa. The region is rich in minerals, people and potential. The challenge is to ensure that this wealth is governed transparently, distributed fairly and used to build economies that serve people rather than deepen dependency and inequality.
We invite you to engage with this edition, reflect on the perspectives presented, and join the continuing conversation about building a more accountable, just and people-centred Southern Africa.