This study examines the effect of fragility on health service delivery in Zimbabwe,
during a period when the country displayed characteristics that mirror the definitions
of a fragile state. Using the Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2015
complemented with data from Afrobarometer survey round 6 of 2014 Measures of
fragility are found not to be statistically significant, whether measured by trust in
institutions or economic conditions, but have the expected sign. We observe that this
result could mainly be attributed to the fact that while macroeconomic and political
instability negatively affected government’s contribution to the health sector, it did
not affect health infrastructure and the contribution by other stakeholders to the
health sector.