Skip to content
News release

Zimbabweans approve of government’s COVID-19 response, but say relief assistance was distributed unfairly

11 Jul 2022 Zimbabwe
Download (English)
News release
Key findings
  • Almost two in 10 Zimbabweans (18%) say a member of their household became ill with COVID-19 or tested positive for the virus. Twice as many (38%) say someone in their household lost a job, business, or primary source of income due to the pandemic (Figure 1).
  • More than seven in 10 citizens (72%) say have been vaccinated against COVID-19. One in 10 say they are “somewhat likely” (5%) or “very likely” (5%) to get vaccinated, while one in seven say it’s “somewhat unlikely” (4%) or “very unlikely” (11%) that they will try to get vaccinated (Figure 2).
  • Vaccine-hesitant respondents cite a wide variety of reasons they are unlikely to get vaccinated, most commonly related to mistrust of available vaccines (Figure 3).
  • Three-fourths (75%) of citizens say the government has done “fairly well” or “very well” in managing the response to the COVID-19 pandemic (Figure 4).
  • Zimbabweans overwhelmingly (92%) report that they did not receive COVID-19 relief assistance from the government (Figure 5).
  • Two-thirds (67%) of citizens say that the distribution of government support to citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic was “somewhat unfair” or “very unfair” (Figure 6).

Most Zimbabweans approve of the government’s overall management of the COVID-19 pandemic, although few report receiving pandemic-related assistance and a majority believe that assistance was distributed unfairly, according to the latest Afrobarometer survey.

More than one-third of adults report that their household lost a primary source of income during the pandemic, but far fewer say they benefited from government assistance.

While most citizens say they have been vaccinated against COVID-19, about one in seven say they are unlikely to try to get vaccinated.