2022 UN Country Team Results Report

The 2022-2026 Zimbabwe UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (ZUNSDCF) Steering Committee and stakeholders convened in April 2023 and reviewed development results achieved in 2022 and endorsed plans for 2023.

We are pleased to note that the Steering Committee and stakeholders meeting brought together over one hundred senior representatives from Government, Development Partners, Civil Society, Private Sector, Youth Groups, Women’s movement, Organizations of Persons with Disabilities, and the media.

The ZUNSDCF, delivering US$524 million in various forms of projects and programmes in 2022, has made deliberate initiatives to target populations often left furthest behind and these include persons with disabilities, migrants and refugees, children, youths, and rural farmers among others under four strategic areas agreed with the Government of Zimbabwe namely:

• People–centered equitable, human development and well-being.
• Environment protection, climatic resilience, and natural resource management.
• Economic Transformation, equitable and inclusion growth; and
• Accountable, equitable and inclusive governance.

The Government of Zimbabwe and the United Nations have a shared commitment to leaving no one behind through delivering concrete results that ensure inclusive participation and reaching the people typically left behind the furthest. 

In support of national efforts and initiatives, the ZUNSDCF pursued projects and programmes that address climate change including the design and launch of Health Resilience Fund, SDG fund on Renewable Energy, and continued implementation of resilience programmes.

Our joint efforts with partners have increased resilience to climate shocks among rural and urban vulnerable households, rural smallholder farmers, migrants, and refugees. These efforts have also promoted natural resources conservation and transformed agrifood systems.

In 2022, the ZUNSDCF focused on recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic including rescuing the Sustainable Development Goals and full-scale transformation of the international financial and debt architecture.

Another major area of focus has been, promoting peace and social cohesion. In line with NDS 1 priorities, the ZUNSDCF supported the strengthening of governance and institutional capacities to build, and sustain peace, promote transparent and accountable institutions, and advance human rights and the rule of law. We must work together to endear social cohesion  to sustain peace including before, during and after the  2023 elections. The costs of conflicts are high and further reverses development gains achieved.

Under the overarching SDGs principle of Leave No One Behind and in adherence to Universal Declaration of Human Rights, international human rights treaties, and instruments, the ZUNSDCF continued to support the Government of Zimbabwe through the UPR mechanisms  to ensure the protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms, particularly persons with disability, women, children, youths and migrants and asylum seekers .

In this regard, the ZUNSDCF facilitated regional engagement and the development of an operational plan with a rights-based approach to migration governance in return contexts. The support includes provision of post-arrival assistance and reintegration support to returning migrants in Zimbabwe, especially regarding the return of about 180,000 Zimbabwean migrants from South Africa with Exemption Permits as well as the potential expulsion of other migrants without legal status.

Without the generous support of the donor community,  these results captured in this report could not have been achieved. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the donor community in Zimbabwe, who supported the first year  implementing the ZUNSDCF with an estimated USD544 million.

Furthermore, we acknowledge the admirable engagement of a cross-section of Government Ministries and Departments, UN Agencies, Donors and Development Partners, Civil Society Organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations, Private Sector, and International Financial Institutions in supporting the Government’s efforts to achieve its national development priorities and meet its international commitments including the Sustainable Development Goals.

Going forward, we count on the strong partnerships established as we strive to achieve the ZUNSDCF outcomes by 2026 with a total finance portfolio of US$ 2.8billion to be mobilized in support of national development priorities and the achievement of SDGs.