Zimbabwe’s government has begun making compensation payments to white former farm owners, 25 years after the land was confiscated. The government paid $3.1m to a “first batch” of 378 farms, with the remainder to be paid in US dollar-denominated treasury bonds.
The compensation is part of a 2020 agreement to pay $3.5bn to former farmers, a requirement for international lenders to start a debt restructuring process with Zimbabwe. The payments are seen as a crucial step towards resolving the country’s economic crisis.