Zviriko Is Not a Strategy

How a jobless economy is pushing Zimbabwe's youth toward drugs and despair, and why industrialisation is the answer

By Narshon Kohlo, Chairperson, CDF Zimbabwe Youth, and Blessing Tariro Makeyi, Chairperson, Constitution Defenders Forum (CDF) UK Federation

3^rd November, 2026

There is a word Zimbabweans say when life breaks us. Zviriko. It happens.

It has carried millions through hunger, blackouts, bank queues and burials. Social media now calls it a statement that has saved many from a mental breakdown. I understand why. When the system gives you nothing, you learn to carry everything yourself.

But let us be honest. A people should not need a slogan to survive their own government.

Zviriko is not a strategy. It is a symptom.

The graduate with nowhere to go

Every year, young Zimbabweans finish school, college and university. They have degrees, certificates and dreams. And every year they walk into an economy with no door for them.

Reported ZimStat figures have put youth unemployment above 85 per cent. Even where the numbers are argued over, the reality on the street is not. Factories have closed. Industries have shrunk. Vending and cross-border trade have become the national career path.

Who built this economy? Who has governed it for over four decades? Do we need to ask who destroyed it? Who promised jobs and delivered a hustle?

When a young person wakes up with an empty stomach and a jobless future, that is not laziness. That is policy failure.

What do the young people of Zimbabwe ask of their government? It is simple. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Yet the ZANU-PF-led government has failed to deliver on this most basic responsibility.

For nearly two decades, our parents have poured thousands of dollars into our education. They made enormous personal and financial sacrifices. They believed their children would graduate, find decent work, earn a fair salary and live with dignity. Then the graduation gown comes off, and the economy offers nothing. Years of study. Years of sacrifice. For what?

From despair to the bottle, the pipe and the pill

Harare's high-density suburbs tell the story. Young men and women, many of them educated, gather openly to consume crystal meth, known as mutoriro, along with illicit alcohol, marijuana, codeine syrups and abused prescription drugs. Researchers in Harare have documented the toll of mutoriro on the mental health of the youths who use it. Reporting from earlier in the crisis, they found a single gram selling for about twelve dollars, roughly a week's rent for a township room.

Drugs have become both a business and a refuge. A refuge from hunger. A refuge from shame. A refuge from a future that has been cancelled.

And where is the help? A 2020 Mental Health Zimbabwe survey found that about 70 per cent of respondents had no access to formal mental health services. Public rehabilitation is almost non-existent. Private rehab is out of reach. Stigma finishes the job. So, the young person who needs a nurse instead meets a police baton.

Why are the poor and the addicted arrested, while the suppliers seem to operate in daylight? Who is protecting the pipeline?

Depression with a political address

We talk about depression as if it falls from the sky. It does not. When a state fails to create work, fails to fund clinics, fails to deal with corruption and fails to protect its young, the despair that follows has a political address.

Call it what it is: governance-induced depression.

And the three vices that follow unemployment are no secret. Substance abuse. Crime. The sale of young bodies just to eat. Each of them is a bill, and our children are paying it.

The excuses are running out.

Government has now launched a National Youth Policy for 2026 to 2030 that names drug abuse and mental health care as priorities. Good. Then let us hold it to its word.

We have heard of youth funds that never reach the youth. We have heard of empowerment banks and empowerment speeches. What we have not seen is a generation put to work.

Meanwhile, political energy is poured into rewriting the rules to protect those in power, while the young are left to rewrite their own coping. Which one will history record as the priority?

Industrialise, or lose a generation

Since independence in 1980, ZANU-PF has had decades to build an industrialised economy capable of employing its people. Zimbabwe was once among the most industrialised countries in sub-Saharan Africa. What happened?

The Industry minister now says that manufacturing capacity utilisation reached 63.2 per cent by the third quarter of 2026. That is an improvement on last year. But it also means more than a third of our productive capacity sits idle. Independent analysts warn that much of the machinery is outdated, and the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries has itself warned of a drift toward de-industrialisation. Asked how many jobs the recovery has created, the ministry said it has not tabulated them.

A recovery that cannot count its jobs is not a recovery for the youth.

The solution is neither complicated nor beyond our reach. Industrialise the country. Revive our productive sectors. Support local enterprises. Attract productive investment. Create decent, sustainable jobs.

And while the government fails us, our brightest leave. Many young Zimbabweans are driven abroad, not because they want to abandon their country, but because their country has failed to give them a future at home. The diaspora is not a choice. It is an indictment.

What accountability looks like

* Jobs, not slogans: real investment in industry, agriculture, skills and youth enterprise, with funds audited and published.

* Treatment, not handcuffs: public rehabilitation and community mental health services in every province.

* Prosecute the pipeline: go after the networks that supply the drugs, not just the young people who use them.

* End the stigma: mental health is health.

* Transparent leadership: officials named and answerable when youth money disappears.

A message to our young people

You are not broken. You are not lazy. You were failed.

Some of us choose to fight because the alternative is watching a generation disappear. It is painful. We will do it anyway.

We do not want handouts. We want opportunities.

We do not want political rhetoric. We want tangible economic transformation.

We do not want to be reduced to campaign mobilisers and political spectators. We want to be active participants in building the economy and shaping the future of our country.

Employment is not a political favour. It is an urgent national priority. A country that educates its young people but cannot employ them is wasting its greatest resource.

To the diaspora: do not look away. Support the clinics. Support the youth projects. Raise your voice in every forum you can reach.

Zviriko is how we survive. Accountability is how we win.

Mobilize. Educate. Defend.

About the authors
Narshon Kohlo is the Chairperson, CDF Zimbabwe Youth, and Blessing Tariro Makeyi is the Chairperson, Constitution Defenders Forum (CDF) UK Federation. Blessing is also a member of the UK Chapter of Restoration of Human Rights (ROHR) Zimbabwe.