Zimbabwe’s national cash transfer programme, called the Harmonized Social Cash Transfer (HSCT), stands out from other cash transfer programmes in Africa because it started in a highly sensitive political environment, with a compromise government of national unity and immediately following one of the worst economic collapses on the continent. The Zimbabwean economy started showing signs of distress in 1998, plummeting at an accelerated rate between 2005 and 2010. Hyperinflation between 2007 and 2008 reached the highest ever recorded for any country, thrusting a large portion of Zimbabwe into extreme poverty. Zimbabwe experienced negative economic growth from 2000 to 2008 with a GDP (gross domestic product) growth rate of 5.7 per cent. The economy was characterized by an overvalued exchange rate, high unemployment (approximately 80 per cent of the labour force since 2005), an inflation rate which reached 26,470 per cent in November 2007, and a domestic debt in excess of ZW$1 trillion (April 2007). Approximately 80 per cent of the population was living below the food poverty line. The economic situation was worsened by recurrent droughts that reduced agricultural productivity and weakened the central management of social services such as health and education and diminished real per-capita spending in these sectors.