Zimbabwe | World Food Programme

Zimbabwe, a landlocked, low-income, food-deficit country in Southern Africa, is grappling with the effects of El Niño, exacerbating its semi-arid climate’s variable nature. An estimated 6 million people are expected to be food insecure in Zimbabwe during the peak of the 2024-2025 lean season from January to March. 

In urban areas, high inflation, rising food prices and fluctuating exchange rates have affected families’ purchasing power and eroded their savings. 1.7 million people (35 percent of the urban population) will be food insecure in 2024.

The 2023 Global Hunger Index classified Zimbabwe's situation as serious. The country also ranked 159 out of 193 in the 2022 Human Development Index. Factors such as widespread poverty, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, limited employment opportunities and recurrent climate-induced shocks contribute to food insecurity.

The World Food Programme (WFP) supports social protection, promotes robust food systems, and assists vulnerable populations. WFP enhances local capacities for emergency response, strengthens links between food producers and consumers and promotes better diets. Efforts focus on anticipating future needs, improving data and forecasting, and strengthening livelihoods.

WFP is committed to supporting women's well-being and economic empowerment, and engaging youth in economic opportunities within food value chains. Concerned about the coexistence of overweight and undernutrition in Zimbabwe, WFP promotes better diets and the consumption of nutritious foods. We deploy digital technology to improve food security and systematically connect national strategies with local action.

WFP collaborates with the Government of Zimbabwe to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2 on ending hunger and SDG 17 on global partnerships, strengthening alliances with government, NGOs, academia, donors, the private sector, UN agencies and communities.

What the World Food Programme is doing in Zimbabwe

Social and humanitarian assistance: WFP provides food and cash transfers to communities affected by seasonal food insecurity, economic shocks and climate extremes in rural areas, cities and the Tongogara Refugee Settlement. We also support national institutions and civil society in improving delivery capacities for social protection programmes.
Urban resilience: WFP empowers urban communities through transformative skills and provides 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. WFP also develops the digital skills of young people and links them to job markets.
Sustainable rural resilience: 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 prioritises 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.
Institutional capacities: WFP is shifting from delivering food assistance to supporting the Government of Zimbabwe in strengthening its national social protection systems, responsiveness to future shocks and food systems development. This will allow national institutions to take the lead, with WFP offering expertise as required.
Service provision: Through bilateral services, WFP provides tailored, on-demand supply chain services on a cost-recovery basis. These include storage, transport and procurement of 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.

Publications

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

Partners and donors

Achieving Zero Hunger is the work of many. Our work in the Zimbabwe is made possible by the support and collaboration of our partners and donors, including:

Canada EU France Food and Nutrition Council (FNC) Germany

India-UN Development Partnership Fund Ireland Japan National University of Science and Technology Russia Switzerland UK University of Zimbabwe UN Zimbabwe USA World Bank Zimbabwe

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Operations in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe country strategic plan (2022–2026)

ZW02 - Country Strategic Plan (CSP)

View all operations

Contacts

Office

Block 1 Arundel Office Park,Norfolk Road, Mount Pleasant
Harare
Zimbabwe

Phone

+263 086 770 00805

Email

WFP.Harare@wfp.org

For media inquiries

WFP.Harare@wfp.org

WFP Zimbabwe | Country Strategic Plan 2022-2026

What the World Food Programme is doing in Zimbabwe

Social and humanitarian assistance

Urban resilience

Sustainable rural resilience

Institutional capacities

Service provision