Editing Economy of Zimbabwe (section)

== The sweeping impact of land reform ==
In 2000, Zimbabwe launched a controversial land reform that, over the next decade, would  seize about 6,000 large, white-owned farms and convert them into over 168,000 black-owned farms.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-10-03 |title=For These Zimbabwean Children, a Good Education Means Living on Their Own |url=https://globalpressjournal.com/africa/zimbabwe/zimbabwean-youths-good-education-means-living/ |access-date=2025-04-17 |website=Global Press Journal |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>Wurth, Margaret, and Jane Buchanan. ''A Bitter Harvest: Child Labor and Human Rights Abuses on Tobacco Farms in Zimbabwe''. Human Rights Watch, 2018. https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/zimbabwe0418_web_2.pdf pg. 24</ref> Many of the new occupants, mainly consisting of landless black citizens and several prominent members of the ruling ZANU-PF administration, were inexperienced or uninterested in farming, thereby failing to retain the labour-intensive, highly efficient management of previous landowners, triggering severe export losses.<ref name="Cry">{{cite book
|title=Cry Zimbabwe: Independence – Twenty Years On
|last=Stiff
|first=Peter
|location=Johannesburg
|publisher=Galago Publishing
|date=June 2000
|isbn=978-1919854021
}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-04-09 |title=No Title. No Utilities. No Problem. Inside the Zimbabwean Ruling Party’s Land-for-Votes Scheme. |url=https://globalpressjournal.com/africa/zimbabwe/no-title-no-utilities-no-problem-inside-the-zimbabwean-ruling-partys-land-for-votes-scheme/ |access-date=2025-04-17 |website=Global Press Journal |language=en-US}}</ref> 

This policy of widespread seizure of private land and property spooked international investors and negatively affected market confidence. The US and other nations slapped sanctions on government officials due to the human rights abuses attributable to the land reform.<ref>{{Citation |last=Mazorodze |first=Washington |title=Targeted Sanctions and the Failure of the Regime Change Agenda in Zimbabwe |date=2021-12-09 |work=Sanctions as War |pages=215–230 |url=https://brill.com/display/book/9789004501201/BP000014.xml |access-date=2025-04-17 |publisher=Brill |language=en |isbn=978-90-04-50120-1}}</ref> Many sanctions continue to this day.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-02-08 |title=Treasury Sanctions Zimbabwe’s President and Key Actors for Corruption and Serious Human Rights Abuse |url=https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2154 |access-date=2025-04-17 |website=U.S. Department of the Treasury |language=en}}</ref> 

In this time, between 1999–2008, Zimbabwe's GDP shrunk by nearly half — the most severe downturn in a country not at war in recorded history.<ref>Joint Needs Assessment for Zimbabwe: Identifying Challenges and Needs, African Development Bank report, 2019 https://www.afdb.org/sites/default/files/2020/01/14/zimbabwe_country_portal.pdf</ref>