Harnessing the Demographic Dividend in Zimbabwe

The Zimbabwe Agenda for Socio-economic Transformation (Zim Asset) 2013-2018 lays a foundation for its long-term development aspirations that seek to achieve sustainable development and social equity anchored on indigenisation, empowerment and job creation. Demographic change has implications for the realisation of these ambitions. This study set out to analyse the population dynamics and age-structure changes in Zimbabwe in the medium to long-term and the implications these will have on the ability of the country to maximise its Demographic Dividend (DD). The demographic dividend refers to the temporary economic benefit that can arise from a significant increase in the ratio of working-age adults relative to young dependents that results from fertility decline - if this change is accompanied by sustained investments in education and skills development, health, job creation and good governance. The DD paradigm offers a framework that is congruent with the needs of Zimbabwe’s long-term development aspirations as well as the global post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda.