Zimbabwe
- 42%
- of Zimbabwe's population lives in extreme poverty
- 26.7%
- of children have stunted growth
- 15.2 million
- population
Zimbabwe is a landlocked, low-income, food-deficit country in Southern Africa. During the 2022/23 lean season, more than 3.8 million people in rural areas faced food insecurity at peak. Zimbabwe’s predominantly semi-arid climate is extremely variable, with shifting rainfall patterns, droughts and floods exacerbated by substantial environmental challenges including land degradation, deforestation and inadequate water quantity and quality.
In Zimbabwean cities, high inflation, rising food prices and fluctuating exchange rates have devalued asset bases, savings and micro-enterprise produce at household level. In urban areas, 1.5 million people (29 percent of the urban population) will be cereal-insecure in 2023.
What the World Food Programme is doing in Zimbabwe
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Social and humanitarian assistance
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WFP provides food and cash transfers to communities affected by seasonal food insecurity, economic shocks and climate extremes, in rural areas, cities and at the Tongogara Refugee Camp. We support national institutions and civil society in areas including improving delivery capacities.
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Urban resilience
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WFP is empowering urban communities through transformative skills and the provision of tools and kits for income-generating activities. Work includes supporting climate-smart urban agriculture by producing high-value crops using hydroponics. Savings groups, targeting especially women and people with disabilities, mean people can borrow money to buy food or send their children to school. Due to limited employment opportunities, limited resources and inequalities in urban centres. WFP also develops digital skills of young people and links them to job markets.
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Sustainable rural resilience
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WFP supports rural farming communities in enhancing water and agriculture infrastructure, offering training on climate-smart farming techniques and promoting traditional small grain production, nutritionally diverse horticulture and animal husbandry. Interventions focus on enhanced entrepreneurial and financial literacy while working to improve nutrition and health awareness and addressing gender norms, social prejudice and other barriers to inclusive rural development. Agriculture risk insurance, savings and credit products are introduced to smallholder farmers as part of integrated resilience programming. Under its Food Assistance for Assets initiative, WFP prioritizes districts that are prone to droughts, supporting community-led creation of infrastructure and assets including nutritional gardens, orchards, community poultry, dam rehabilitations and rabbit houses, various environmental protection works and solar-powered boreholes.
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Institutional capacities
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WFP is shifting from the delivery of food assistance to supporting the Government of Zimbabwe in strengthening its national social protection systems and responsiveness to future shocks, as well as in the development of food systems. That will allow national institutions to take the lead, with WFP offering expertise as required.
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Service provision
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Through bilateral services, WFP provides tailored, on-demand supply chain services on a cost-recovery basis – these span from storage, to transport and procurement of both food and non-food items. During a humanitarian crisis and the activation of the WFP-led Logistics Cluster, we provide mandated common services to humanitarian actors, including information management, logistics coordination, and common logistics services for the uninterrupted supply of life-saving relief assistance.
In focus
‘Coronavirus destroys everything’
‘We can’t stay indoors or we’ll die of hunger’: Coronavirus fears mount for Zimbabwe’s urban poor
Zimbabwe in the grip of hunger
How drought is killing Zimbabwe
Japan pledges US$2.7 million to provide food assistance and strengthen community resilience in Zimbabwe
News release | 30 October 2019
Marching towards starvation
Faces of hope: Tongogara Refugee Camp in Zimbabwe
Helicopter for change
Zimbabwe news releases
Go to pageFind out more about the state of food security in Zimbabwe
Visit the food security analysis pageOperations in Zimbabwe
Contacts
Office
Block 1 Arundel Office Park,Norfolk Road, Mount Pleasant
Harare
Zimbabwe