6 things Mnangagwa intends to do to attract innovators to prop Zimbabwe to an Upper Middle income country

Our heritage studies must anchor the learner in our culture and ethos as Zimbabweans and as Africans. Through it, we must repair our broken personality and faith in ourselves as a people, so we take our rightful place in national development and in global affairs.

Needless to say, a people lacking self-belief cannot be sovereign, or build a sovereign society. Our heritage which is symbolised in brick hewn out of hard granite rock, confirms us as a solid civilisation whose innovative cast is steeped in a proud past, and continues to speak across time. Great Zimbabwe and its sibling monuments stand and proclaim just that.

The time has now come for us to summon and rally this creative urge ingrained in us by history and heritage.

That urge has been lying dormant; or crying out for expression, recognition and a home. Much worse, it has gone into self-exile, deserted its home to be embraced and nurtured by foreigners whose faraway societies it has prospered.

Daily, I read about Zimbabwean scientists who have played and continue to play outstanding roles in global research and development.

They have made epochal contributions across disciplines, and have received awards, most notably in medical and engineering fields.

They remain unsung, undecorated here at home. Worse, they have given up on their homeland which has not always acknowledged or embraced them. I heard their cries recently: in Dubai and in Zurich.

I am sure many more cry, unmet and unheard in other parts of the world where they live and where I am yet to visit.

The bottom line is Zimbabwe’s scientific talent and resource is scattered, well away from home, where it is most needed.

We have decided on value addition and beneficiation. We have decided on local value chains. We have decided on technology-aided transformation of our economy.

All these make our economy one huge laboratory and innovation hub which cry out for all our creative citizens.

As your President, I say, come back from wherever you had gone. I say come forward from whatever corner to which our inhospitable attitudes and policies had consigned you.

There is now in a place in the sun for you, in your homeland. Imi nesu tava nebasa! The brick has to be moulded by you; the mortar has to be made again by you; both must now be used by you to erect the Great Wall of Zimbabwe! This is what NYIKA INOVAKWA NEVENE VAYO means.

What then is on offer, going forward?

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