Zimbabwe was once one of Africa’s leading economies. For two decades after independence it was a net exporter of agricultural products, its health and education systems were among the best on the continent and annual growth rates in the 1980s exceeded 4 per cent.

By late 2008, half the population needed food aid, water supplies had broken down, a cholera epidemic had claimed thousands of lives, public schools and hospitals had closed, and economic mismanagement and hyperinflation of more than 230 million per cent had brought the economy to a halt. Life expectancy decreased from 60 in 1980 to 34.

Since the founding of The Elders, they have been dedicated to supporting efforts to alleviate the suffering of Zimbabweans. The rapid deterioration of humanitarian conditions in 2008 compelled the Elders to act decisively.

In November 2008, Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter and Graça Machel attempted to visit Harare to draw attention to Zimbabwe’s devastating humanitarian crisis. Prevented from entering Zimbabwe as originally planned, the Elders rearranged their schedule and met representatives of Zimbabwean civil society, business and politics as well as donors and UN agencies over three days in Johannesburg. They also visited the city’s Central Methodist Church where two thousand people, most of them from Zimbabwe, take refuge every night.

The Elders’ visit shifted world and media attention from the protracted political negotiations between Zimbabwe’s political leaders to the humanitarian crisis. It helped to persuade the leaders in the southern African region to take a more assertive approach to addressing Zimbabwe’s political and humanitarian crisis.

The visit was headline news, especially in Zimbabwe, South Africa, the UK and the US. Across southern Africa, there were more than 800 media stories about the Elders’ initiative in print, radio, TV and online.

Since the Elders’ visit to southern Africa, the formation of an inclusive government in Zimbabwe in February 2009 has given the country an opportunity to begin to recover from a decade of repression, violence and disastrous policies.

Donors to Zimbabwe have indicated that they will not deliver long-term development assistance until the government implements much-needed political and economic reforms. The Elders agree that full donor re-engagement should be linked to certain conditions. However, they argue that the inclusive government needs more support to ensure that it can implement the urgent stabilisation and early recovery programmes that the people desperately need. Now is not the time for donors to take a ‘wait and see’ approach.

Because of these concerns, in May 2009 The Elders reached out to the development ministers of 18 donor countries and the European Commission to urge them to expand humanitarian aid to include activities that are not usually considered humanitarian but that could be life-saving in the Zimbabwean context such as providing allowances to teachers and doctors, rehabilitation of water and sanitation, and food security.

Several donors including Australia, Denmark, Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States have increased their funding to Zimbabwe and for activities beyond emergency health and food assistance.

The Elders continue to closely follow events in Zimbabwe and remain engaged in efforts to boost international support for Zimbabwe’s recovery and stabilisation.