Zimbabwe
- 42%
- of Zimbabwe's population lives in extreme poverty
- 26.7%
- of children have stunted growth
- 15.2 million
- population
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 2024-2025 lean season (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.
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 the Tongogara Refugee Settlement. We also support national institutions and civil society in improving delivery capacities for social protection programmes.
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Urban resilience
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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.
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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 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.
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Institutional capacities
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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.
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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 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.
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