ZIMBABWE should look up to its human capital for solutions to revamp ailing industries, kick-start manufacturing and re-position the country as SADC’s bread-basket.
The human capital is the most valued resource that any nation has.
As a country, we boast the highest literacy rate in Africa at 92 percent.
However, we are cracking our heads trying to find solutions to the struggling economy.
Yet the answer is right before our eyes, it is you and I, the human capital.
According to Investopedia, human capital is the economic value of an employee’s skills-set.
Human capital reflects human capabilities and recognises that the quality of an employee’s contribution can be enhanced by investing in the individual employee through interventions such as education and working experience.
The economic value is want we want to tap into, as a Nation, from each and every employee as well as potential employee.
But you cannot unlock economic value when individuals wait for the next person to find the solution to the problems bedevilling us.
The other day I was conversing with a colleague, who made fun of people with a skewed mentality. Her friends, she said, always expressed preference for Sam Levy Village because it was smart, had well swept pavements with no litter, compared to other leisure places.
The solution to the problem, according to the colleague, was that people should just clean their respective areas, make them smart and enjoyable to hang around.
The progress that we seek before it is made possible by the foreign direct investment that many think is the panacea must first start by a paradigm shift.
Development begins in one’s mind.
Yes.
That is it.
The brain and all its vast capabilities.
As Africans, we cannot continue sobbing over our woes. Hakuna dzinza risina ngozi.
The human mind, equipped with the correct software, bouyed by hunhu/ubuntu, will unlock and deliver answers to the most puzzling questions.
The human mind is more like a salt-shaker, the more you shake it, the more that comes out.
When faced with a problem, the human mind automatically scans for an immediate solution.
The human mind does not only just possess capabilities to identify problems, it also identifies solutions.
Practical solutions for that matter.
Practical solutions that speak to the discourse that as an individual, what are you doing at your own location that distinguishes you as an invaluable asset to humankind?
Take for example a simple management problem at a restaurant that recently opened in the neighbourhood.
As soon as they set up shop, they realised brisk business.
And they came up with a typical ‘too-good-to-be-true’ meal-pack that sells like hot cakes and soon their offering became the talk of town.
Never mind how long they have been in that business, but when that break is just around the corner, they blow it.
What do they do?
Service declines.
Confronted over an ‘unwelcome extra’ in the plate, the restaurant proprietor casually says; ‘mistakes happen’.
“What?” retorted the aggrieved and unbelieving customer?
After that the customer swears never to set foot at the food joint and to tell anyone who cared to listen how the restaurant failed to treat customers as kings or queens.
The restaurant has since lost the bulk of its business following that and other incidents.
However, there was an answer which could have avoided all this melee which cost them so much business.
The restaurant owner could have simply apologised for that faux pas, promising to carry out an investigation and perhaps offer a consolation meal-pack, which was not offered probably because the restaurant owner thought she could afford to lose just one customer.
Now the business is fighting for its survival.
A practical solution is all that lay between business loss and growth.
Clearly the route to practical solutions to problems is obviously fraught with landmines.
But it must be travelled if sustainable growth is to be achieved.
Simple practical solutions like the creation of the wheel has revolutionarised life in more ways than then imagined.
Carved from wood to lessen the burden of transportation, the wheel has redefined the laws of motion, revolutionised transportion and is a permanent feature in machines, vehicles, household furniture; wherever you look there is a product using a wheel.
Just as the wheel was invented by someone who had a need to be fulfilled and looked around for the most immediate solution, Zimbabweans should introspect and find their individual contribution for the betterment of the country.
All we need to do is change our thinking and know that all success and development stem from the head.
The answers are there, we just need to open our eyes and see.