Mugabe hails 'highly developed' Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is the most highly developed country in Africa, after South Africa. That’s the view of President Robert Mugabe who made a surprise appearance on a morning panel on fragile states at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa in Durban on Thursday. A report on the News24 site notes that he shared a stage with the likes of American actor Forest Whitaker, the Unesco Special Envoy for Peace, and Donald Kaberuka, the special envoy for the African Union Peace Fund. Anton du Plessis from the Institute for Security Studies, after saying that corruption and bad leaders contributed to the problem of fragile states in Africa, asked Mugabe if he agreed that Zimbabwe was a failed state. Mugabe said: ‘That isn’t true. Zimbabwe is the most highly developed country in Africa. After South Africa, I want to see another country as highly developed.’ He said his country sported 14 universities and had a literacy rate of more than 90%, which was the highest in Africa. ‘And yet they talk about us as a fragile state,’ he said.

Full Fin24 report