Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, when he last spoke to President Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe.

The Foreign Secretary has not spoken with President Mnangagwa. In November 2017, the then Minister for Africa became the first UK minister to meet a Zimbabwean President in over 18 years, meeting with President Mnangagwa at his inauguration when hopes of political and economic reform in Zimbabwe were high. In April 2018, when he was Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister (Boris Johnson) met the then Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Sibusiso Moyo to urge him to ensure Zimbabwe's 2018 elections were free and fair.

FCDO Ministers and officials continue to take all opportunities to press for political and economic reform in Zimbabwe and to insist that human rights are respected. The UK sanctioned four senior security officials in February 2021 for their part in human rights abuses.