AfDB working to raise billions to compensate Zimbabwe's white farmers

The African Development Bank said Monday it had developed the financial tools needed to make over $3 billion in compensation payments to white farmers who lost land and other assets in Zimbabwe.

The bank's president Akinwumi Adesina, while speaking during a press conference in Harare, said the new proposal would 'leverage capital markets' to avoid aggravating Zimbabwe's debt situation.

He did not provide further details.

''That is why the African Development Bank is currently working with the Government of Zimbabwe to develop innovative financial instruments and structures that can be used to front-load the mobilization of the $3.5 billion for compensations,'' read a part of the statement.

''I encourage development partners to work together on this proposed structure which can help leverage capital markets to fund the compensations without additional debt for Zimbabwe,'' it added.

Zimbabwe agreed in 2020 to compensate local white farmers whose land was taken by the government from 2000 onwards to resettle Black families, in one of the most divisive, yet popular policies of the Robert Mugabe era.

The expropriation triggered a barrage of western sanctions and isolation against Zimbabwe. The southern African country's economy collapsed from the ensuing high inflation and debt.