Bernard Thomas Gibson Chidzero (1 July 1927[2] – 8 August 2002) was a Zimbabwean economist, politician, and writer.
[3][8] From 1968 to 1980 Chidzero worked for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD): from 1968 to 1977 he was the Director of Commodities and between 1977 and 1980 he served as UNCTAD's Deputy Secretary General[8][9] After the 1965 Unilateral Declaration of Independence by Ian Smith, Chidzero played a role in the early negotiations for Zimbabwe.
He was part of the advisory team when Joshua Nkomo leader of Zimbabwe African People's Party visited London.
The collapse of those talks, resulting in the split of ZAPU and Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), also marked a watershed in Chidzero's political allegiances.
Aware of impending violence in Zimbabwe, in 1970, Chidzero bought a farm in Malawi and moved his father and kinsfolk out of Rhodesia.
On 21 December 1972 the first armed attack on a Rhodesian white settler took place in Centenary, Zambezi River escarpment.
[9] Back home he designed and implemented the Zimbabwean version of the Structural Adjustment Programme; in the process earning himself the wrath of certain ZANU-PF stalwarts who considered his economic programs ill-timed and denying them access to 'rewards of their war effort'.
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 Chidzero ran for election to the post of Secretary-General of the United Nations.