ZIMBABWE has launched a coordinated national mechanism aimed at strengthening the country's resilience to climate change and economic shocks.
The National Resilience Platform (NRP) is designed to streamline resilience coordination, knowledge management and resource mobilisation while ensuring collective efforts deliver maximum impact and accelerate progress towards a resilient and prosperous Zimbabwe.
The platform brings together government, development partners and communities to coordinate responses to climate-related disasters and economic shocks that have increasingly disrupted livelihoods, agriculture and infrastructure across the country.
Due to the current geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, which have led to rising fuel and fertiliser prices, the platform is also expected to help mitigate the impact of such external shocks.
Speaking at the NRP meeting, Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development secretary Obert Jiri said the platform provides a timely and indispensable mechanism to holistically connect existing initiatives.
“The National Resilience Platform represents a deliberate strategic step by government and its partners to move more decisively from fragmented, often reactive initiatives towards a coherent and integrated national system,” he said.
Over the past decade, Zimbabwe has experienced more than 10 major climate and economic shocks, including droughts, cyclones and outbreaks of agricultural pests, leading to an estimated US$3 billion in losses.
“This relentless barrage has had a profoundly negative impact on our agriculture, our water resources, our critical infrastructure, our ecosystems and the very fabric of rural livelihoods, driving many deeper into poverty cycles,” Jiri said.
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He said the platform would help streamline resilience coordination, knowledge management and resource mobilisation while ensuring collective efforts deliver maximum impact.
“The establishment of this National Resilience Platform is a direct result of sustained reflection on how Zimbabwe can effectively coordinate responses to the increasingly complex and intertwined shocks and stresses we have faced over the past few years,” Jiri said.
The platform is aligned with the Transformative Agriculture Food Systems and Rural Transformation Strategy 2 and the National Climate Change Policy of 2025, both of which emphasise resilience as a cornerstone for Zimbabwe’s development.
“It supports the implementation of NDS2, strengthens the transformation ambitions of the agricultural food systems and rural transformation tool and is also aligned with the climate change policy, and other sectoral blueprints represented,” Jiri said.
“The work undertaken through this community of practice will ensure that Zimbabwe's development systems become stronger, more adaptive, and better prepared to respond to future shocks.”
He added that a coordinated approach would help avoid duplication of efforts and ensure resources reach communities most in need.
“Our villages are fixed in this country — there are 35 000 of them. If we can have 35 000 interventions through our combined effort, we will be able to be impactful in all 35 000 villages,” he said.
United Nations Development Programme deputy resident representative Challa Getachew said the platform would strengthen collaboration among stakeholders.
“The platform provides a national architecture for coordination, collaboration and synergies among various actors.
“It connects policy with practice, linking national strategies to national and community-level action. It creates a space for continuous learning, collaboration and evidence-based decision-making,” he said.
