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Zimbabwe has opened and exposed itself to a plethora of predatory investors in the current engagement and re-engagement drive under the National Development Strategy 1 in a move to attract foreign direct Investments by large multinational corporations and conglomerates.

Whether Zimbabwe reaped the anticipated benefits from these investments in the name of international trade or not is a subject for another day.

However, history has it that the gains from international trade are most frequently captured by a few large firms, often at the expense of the majority of small enterprises, women entrepreneurs, artisanal and small-scale miners, rural agriculturists, and fishers, among other players.

This is largely because such small actors are faced with a myriad of obstacles in benefiting from international trade such as limited information or lack thereof, lack of financing, bureaucracy, red tape, cost of doing business, prohibitive entry costs, and underrepresentation in trade policy decision-making.

For Zimbabwe, the major flaws in international trade have manifested in heightened corruption and illicit financial flows and trade practices which have often side-lined fundamental human rights including life, livelihood, labour and environmental rights.

Investors and global giants have betrayed citizens of national revenue inflows and public goods.

The foregoing background underscores the need for inclusive and equitable development which can only be achieved through trade justice.

To this end, trade justice is a critical issue as it is the only way developing countries can extricate themselves from the unbearable debt burden and from a complex web of unfair trade practices by Western and Eastern countries to undermine the economic development of countries like Zimbabwe.

Therefore, the demand for trade justice is not a matter of choice but an emergency for developing nations.

Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development