Zimbabwe cannot continue to educate, train and export some of its best brains to the rest of the world while struggling to develop with the people it has invested in.
This is not an argument against Zimbabweans working abroad. Our professionals should be free to pursue opportunities anywhere in the world. The real question is: What is Zimbabwe doing to ensure that when our best engineers, doctors, scientists, ICT specialists, academics, entrepreneurs and other professionals leave, they remain economically and intellectually connected to home?
Zimbabwe has a relatively small population, but it is exceptionally rich in natural resources. We therefore cannot afford to lose the very people with the knowledge and expertise required to transform those resources into industries, products, technologies and jobs.
Learn from China
Why don’t we learn from China?
Zimbabwe and China have developed a strong friendship and increasingly deep cooperation in education, vocational training, technology and industrial development. The two countries are already expanding cooperation in skills development, technology transfer and talent cultivation.
But we should go further.
China has demonstrated the importance of deliberately creating systems that attract, support and reconnect with talent abroad. Chinese policies have provided incentives for overseas-trained professionals to return, establish businesses, conduct research and participate in innovation. Shanghai, for example, has policies supporting overseas returnees through entrepreneurship, technology transfer, research cooperation and access to services.
The lesson for Zimbabwe is not to copy China blindly. It is to adopt the principle: Build a system in which national development and personal opportunity reinforce each other.
Leaving Zimbabwe should not mean losing Zimbabwe.
Imagine a Zimbabwean engineer working in Britain, a doctor in Australia, an ICT specialist in America or a scientist in China.
Instead of considering that person “lost”, Zimbabwe should ask: How can we continue to benefit from that person’s knowledge, investment, networks and experience?
A national diaspora talent system
Zimbabwe should establish a National Diaspora Talent and Investment Programme.
Such a system could allow Zimbabwean professionals abroad to:
register their skills and areas of expertise;
mentor Zimbabwean students and young professionals remotely;
participate in national research and industrial projects;
invest in Zimbabwean businesses;
provide technical consultancy to local companies;
establish companies or joint ventures in Zimbabwe;
teach periodically at universities and technical colleges;
transfer technology and international standards;
participate in infrastructure and resource-development projects; and eventually return home through clear pathways into employment, business or public service.
China’s experience shows that attracting overseas talent requires more than simply asking people to come home. There must be an ecosystem waiting for them.
Zimbabwe needs a “Talent at Home” system.
Every Zimbabwean professional leaving the country should leave knowing: “Zimbabwe still has a place for me.”
That place could be a business opportunity, a research project, a university position, an industrial venture, a consultancy, an investment opportunity or even a future public-service role.
The government could create a central digital platform linking the diaspora with ministries, universities, polytechnics, industry, SMEs and investors.
This would change the national conversation from: “How do we stop Zimbabweans from leaving?”
To: “How do we ensure that Zimbabwe benefits from Zimbabweans wherever they are?”
That is a far more practical approach.
Our minerals need our brains
Zimbabwe has gold, lithium, platinum, diamonds, chrome, coal and many other resources. But possessing resources does not automatically create prosperity.
The real value comes from knowledge, technology, engineering, research, manufacturing and innovation.
Why should Zimbabwe export lithium and then import sophisticated lithium-related products?
Why should we export minerals without developing stronger local processing and manufacturing capabilities?
Why should Zimbabwe possess highly educated engineers and scientists while importing expertise for projects that Zimbabweans could eventually design, manage and execute themselves?
Natural resources without human capital can become a curse. Natural resources combined with human capital can become the foundation of an industrial economy.
This is where China can become an even greater partner.
The relationship between Zimbabwe and China provides an opportunity to build something much bigger than scholarships and exchanges. Zimbabwe should seek structured programmes involving Chinese universities, research institutions and companies that transfer knowledge, technology, manufacturing capability and management expertise to Zimbabweans.
The recent establishment of the China-Zimbabwe Engineering Technology Academy and the China-Zimbabwe Silk Road Teacher Capacity-Building Center at Harare Polytechnic demonstrates that this type of cooperation is already moving in the right direction.
The next step should be to ensure that the relationship produces Zimbabwean-owned capability.
We should train Zimbabweans not merely to operate imported technology, but eventually to design it, manufacture it, improve it and export it.
We have the numbers to transform the country
Zimbabwe does not have a population of hundreds of millions. That should, in some respects, be an advantage.
If Zimbabwe developed a functioning national system for identifying its best engineers, scientists, ICT specialists, entrepreneurs, academics and technicians — both at home and abroad — it could coordinate this relatively small pool of talent around clearly defined national projects.
One successful engineer can create a company.
One successful ICT entrepreneur can create hundreds of jobs.
One scientist can develop a new industrial process.
One outstanding agricultural specialist can transform an entire farming value chain.
One group of engineers can develop technology that saves millions of dollars in imports.
Every solution has the potential to move Zimbabwe another level forward.
We therefore need to stop measuring our human capital only by how many talented people remain inside our borders.
Our national talent is global. Zimbabwe’s challenge is to turn that global talent into national advantage.
Copy the system, not the country
There is nothing wrong with Zimbabwe learning from countries that have solved problems we are still struggling with.
We copied many systems from Britain.
We adopted technologies developed elsewhere.
We use international banking, telecommunications, education and engineering standards.
So why should we not study the systems China has developed to attract and reconnect with its overseas talent?
China itself has long recognised the importance of supporting returned overseas Chinese and their families, while more recent policies have focused heavily on attracting international and overseas talent.
This is not about Zimbabwe becoming China.
It is about becoming a better Zimbabwe by learning what works elsewhere.
Zimbabwe’s relationship with China gives us a unique opportunity to do precisely that.
The country needs a new social contract with its educated population:
You may travel. You may work abroad. You may build an international career. But Zimbabwe must remain part of your future — and Zimbabwe must create a system that makes coming back, investing back and contributing back worthwhile.
We cannot keep exporting our best brains and then importing the expertise to replace them.
Zimbabwe’s greatest resource may not be underneath the ground.
It may be the Zimbabwean brain.
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