Bernard Thomas Gibson Chidzero was a Zimbabwean economist, politician, and writer.
21 Facts About Bernard Chidzero
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Bernard Thomas Gibson Chidzero was the eldest of seven children.
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Bernard Chidzero was raised in the Seke area of Chitungwiza.
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Bernard Chidzero was schooled at primary school in Seke and then at Kutama College, where he played in the school band alongside fellow pupil Robert Mugabe.
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Bernard Chidzero then attended St Francis College in Mariannhill in South Africa.
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Bernard Chidzero obtained a degree in psychology from Pius XII Catholic University College in Lesotho, an MA in political science from the University of Ottawa in 1955, and in 1958 a PhD in political science from McGill University in Montreal, where he married a French-Canadian woman.
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Bernard Chidzero then undertook two years post-graduate study at Nuffield College, Oxford.
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Early on Bernard Chidzero became interested in African politics and as a Pan Africanist he became friends, in the London African circuit, with future leaders including Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Seretse Khama.
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In 1957 Bernard Chidzero published a Shona novel Nzvengamutsvairo which detailed the condition of workers on Rhodesian farms and set out his vision of an integrated, racially tolerant society.
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Armed with a grant from the Ford Foundation, Bernard Chidzero returned to Rhodesia in 1960, intending to teach at the University of Rhodesia and Nyasaland; his offer to work there was withdrawn when the segregated university discovered the interracial nature of Bernard Chidzero's marriage.
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Bernard Chidzero began in the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa as an economic affairs officer in Addis Ababa and from 1963 to 1968 as an assistant to the UN Technical Assistance Board in Kenya.
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From 1968 to 1980 Bernard Chidzero worked for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development : from 1968 to 1977 he was the Director of Commodities and between 1977 and 1980 he served as UNCTAD's Deputy Secretary General.
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Bernard Chidzero was part of the advisory team when Joshua Nkomo leader of Zimbabwe African People's Party visited London.
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Aware of impending violence in Zimbabwe, in 1970, Bernard Chidzero bought a farm in Malawi and moved his father and kinsfolk out of Rhodesia.
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Meanwhile, during a visit to Malawi in 1972, Bernard Chidzero made overtures to his Pan African 'brother' and 'friend' Hastings Kamuzu Banda to settle in Malawi when his United Nations tenure expired.
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Bernard Chidzero was Chairman of the Development Committee of the World Bank from 1986 to 1990.
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Bernard Chidzero was a member of the World Commission on Environment and Development.
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In 1990, aware of the disaster that the Zimbabwean economy was headed for and vilified and accused for SAP's 'failures' by those within the ruling party, a frustrated Bernard Chidzero ran for election to the post of Secretary-General of the United Nations.
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Bernard Chidzero was supported by the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries, but was defeated by Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
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Bernard Chidzero died in the Avenues Clinic in Harare in 2002.
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Bernard Chidzero is buried in the Heroes' Acre in Harare.