Senior Fellow Alan Gelb is quoted in a piece from NewsDay on Zimbabwe's mining industry.
A FORMER World Bank official has advised the government to diversify the economy on the back of firm commodity prices, saying the mining sector alone would not pull the country out of poverty.
Addressing delegates at the High Level Technical Dialogue on Zimbabwe Growth Recovery in Harare on Wednesday, Alan Gelb, the former director of development policy at the World Bank and chief economist for the bank’s Africa region, urged the government to put in place measures which will increase output of the capital-intensive industry as a way of encouraging forward linkages with other sectors.
He cited the case of copper-producing Chile as an economy that had managed to effectively leverage on mineral resources.
The Centre for Global Development fellow said Zimbabwe could spur growth for tourism and agriculture anchored on a buoyant extractive industry.
“Minerals alone will not make Zimbabwe rich,” Gelb said.
“There is need to leverage mineral resources to diversify and take advantage of the mineral cycle.
“Zimbabwe is not the only fish in the sea as far as mining is concerned. The real challenge is to develop the political consensus and institutions to manage resources well.”