Watch Video: Locked Down — A Cross Border’s Tale

The coronavirus has been a blessing in disguise for some sections of the local economy, but for a majority of informal business operators in Matabeleland, restrictions imposed to contain the virus have decimated cross border trading, the life blood of their small businesses.

BULAWAYO: (The Citizen Bulletin) — Zimbabwe is estimated to have the largest informal sector in Africa, and the second-largest in the world after Bolivia, representing approximately 60 percent of the economy. With a few goods manufactured locally, the country is import-reliant, with most goods coming from South Africa, Botswana, and even China.

Female traders dominate the informal sector, accounting for over two thirds of small-, micro and medium-sized business enterprises. Most of these women are involved in cross-border trading, agriculture, crafts and food vending, among other trades.

These traders have a face, a family, dreams and hopes that have been shattered by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the City of Kings and Queens as Bulawayo is affectionately known lives Pretty Mpofu— a woman whose life has evolved around cross border trading—until now.