Poverty eradication in Zimbabwe : meeting the millennium development goals (MDGs) through home-grown business approaches

In this essential book, Dr. Jessica Hamadziripi proposes a framework for poverty eradication in one of the world's poor nations : Zimbabwe. She demonstrates the need of development for home-sourced finance, parallel to a «framework for Indigenization and Empowerment» capable of generating incomes at personal and household level sufficient to meet the daily necessities of life.

Dr. Hamadziripi stresses that these home-grown approaches might fail if citizens are not empowered at the local level.

Furthermore, from her standpoint as a Zimbabwean, she also points out some critical voids in the Millennium Development Goals. For example, agriculture is not specifically mentioned in the MDG, even though the majority of Africa's - and Zimbabwe's - poor families are, actually, rural farmers. With their focus on primary education, enrollment and completion, the Millennium

Development Goals have left aside agriculture and finance, which have strategic implications on economic growth.

Dr. Hamadziripi's research suggests that a 'one size fits all model' will not sufficiently respond to the profile of Zimbabwe; however, her study does find a set of similar constraints in meeting MDGI, such as the lack of health care absorptive capacity, poor access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, a weak educational system, human resource limitations, and others. The measures she suggests include political, organizational, and functional improvements, and the need to nurture local organizations.