SANORD's Effort To Save The Mining Industry In Zimbabwe Is Underway 
Mining is one of the chief contributors to Zimbabwe's exports. The problem though is due to brain drain. Many lecturers who have provided essential education to students looking to enter the field of mining and metallurgical engineering have fled from the Country. The depleted number of staff has had a severely adverse effect on the programs that the University of Zimbabwe can offer. The facilities of the University are top notch, however if there is not a sufficient lecturer and examiner populace many students have been blocked from adding the courses to their course lists. The situation was provided the spotlight at the Zimbabwe Chamber of Mines' 70th Annual General Meeting which took place in June of 2009.
The situation will have a dire trickle effect on the development of mining in Zimbabwe. If the University can not produce a substantial number of competent mining and metallurgical engineers, then the firms will not have a sufficient number of members to run the complicated mining equipment to extract the natural resources from the mines of Zimbabwe. 

The General Meeting sought to create both short and long terms solutions to the dearth of lecturers.  One short term solution that was proposed by the counsel was to establish fair compensation for workers and lecturers including an appealing array of benefits that would seduce them into dedicating themselves to managing the mining facilities and providing lectures for the undergraduates. They argued that the benefits should represent a plan competitive with neighboring Southern African Development Community Countries. This may draw in more educated individuals to alleviate the situation.  



Providing a long term solution to the crisis would require far more planning and strategizing.  It would focus on a intricate grass roots program to slowly infiltrate the political climate of Zimbabwe.  The voicing of public opinion in combination with having political supporters placed within the Zimbabwe Government could help to generate modifications of Zimbabwe's economic, financial and political policies. These policies would focus on reaching out to other countries to aid in the development of the Zimbabwe mines and helping to provide education for the students of the University. 

Western countries have limited their assistance of aid directly demanding that they would with hold their resources until Zimbabwe goes through some fundamental political and economic policy change.   

The problem does not stop at merely acquiring academics to support the Zimbabwe education system. Studies have been conducted that show that not only is there a strong desire for citizens of Zimbabwe to want to emigrate to one of the neighboring African countries but that statistic is even high as the education level of the population increases. A post-graduate of the University of Zimbabwe is 16% more likely to want emigrate and 6% more like for a graduate than the 70% of the general population. The problems that have arisen in Zimbabwe can be solved, but it will require the combination of both short and long term solutions.