There is a peculiar ritual in Zimbabwe’s digital space – predictable; almost mechanical. You post a rebuilt road, a new clinic wing, a dam wall rising, or power units being restored – and someone arrives, right on cue, with the same sneer disguised as a question: “Where were you when the infrastructure you’re rebuilding today was collapsing?” It is not asked to understand, but to score points.

That question only sounds clever if we pretend infrastructure collapses for entertainment – as if highways, waterworks, hospitals, rail, and power stations simply wake up one morning and decide to die. A serious answer requires adult economics, not comment-section theatrics on Facebook and X. More …

As 2025 draws to a close, President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa has delivered his Christmas and New Year message. In it, I noticed something subtle yet unmistakable. He spoke directly to Zimbabweans at home and in the diaspora. That single choice of words, directed at the diaspora, mattered. It was not a ceremonial flourish or a seasonal courtesy, but a clear signal that the Zimbabwean diaspora is no longer a distant audience observing events from afar. It is a central actor in the country’s economic story.

For too long, the diaspora has been described – and at times has described itself – in emotional terms: distance, longing, displacement, the hope of eventual return. That narrative is tired. More importantly, it is incomplete. The real story is economic, measurable, and already unfolding. In just the first nine months of 2025, remittances rose by more than 12 percent to US$2.1 billion, with annual inflows projected to exceed US$2.7 billion. At that scale, diaspora inflows are not supplementary. They stabilise households, support foreign-currency availability, and quietly keep the wheels of the economy turning.
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