Economic restructuring under structural adjustment in Zimbabwe: Deindustrialization in the textile, clothing and footwear industries

Since the early 1980s most of Sub-Saharan Africa has been engaged in programs of economic liberalization, termed "structural adjustment", sponsored by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In the literature there has been an inconclusive debate about the impacts of structural adjustment on manufacturing development in Africa. This thesis examines the impacts structural adjustment on the development of Zimbabwe's textile, clothing and footwear industries.;With a stable macro-economy, a good infrastructure and a developed manufacturing base, Zimbabwe was meant to be favorably positioned to pursue structural adjustment, beginning in 1990. The labor-intensive and export-oriented textile, clothing and footwear were predicted to grow especially rapidly once the economy was liberalized, however, in actuality they collapsed. Using survey returns and data from interviews with a variety of institutions and with firm managers, this thesis explains the collapse of the study industries by reference to the impacts of exchange rate, trade and financial sector liberalization, inflows of second hand clothing and the effects of falling real wages on workers' motivation.;The traditional economic theory on which structural adjustment policies are based ignores the spatially embedded nature of development and consequently the results of reform have been much different from those anticipated. Where technological capabilities are weak, foreign investment is scarce, and the economic structure tends towards macro-economic instability, economic liberalization results in the autonomous development of the trade and financial sectors to the detriment of production.;It is argued that economic liberalization in the Third World is fundamentally conditioned by restructuring in the First, particularly the slow-down in economic growth during the 1970s and the consequent necessity of opening markets globally. Africa's social and economic decline will only be reversed by movements for participatory democracy or by hard states capable of effectively regulating trade and finance, and disciplining domestic capital to meet export targets and to upgrade its capabilities.