US$130 Million To Shield Zambezi Basin Food And Livelihoods
The air in the Harare conference room was heavy with both heat and expectation as water engineers, climate negotiators and development bankers bent over maps of the Zambezi. On the wall, a satellite image showed the river’s long blue spine snaking from Angola to Mozambique. On the table lay a different picture: a US$130 million plan to protect the people, food systems and ecosystems that depend on it.
After three days of negotiation, delegates from the eight Zambezi basin countries – Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe – agreed on what comes first in the Programme for Building Resilience of Food, Livelihoods and Ecosystems in the Zambezi River Basin, known as BREFOLE‑ZRB. The meeting, held in Harare from 9 to 11 September, marked a clear shift from drawing up plans to getting them financed and implemented on the ground.
For southern Africa, the stakes are high. The Zambezi powers Kariba and Cahora Bassa, irrigates scores of schemes, feeds vast inland fisheries, draws tourists to Victoria Falls and provides drinking water to millions. When rains fail, hydropower output dips and crops wither. When floods hit, fields vanish under water. Climate change is making both extremes more frequent and more intense, at the same time as more families rely on the river to survive.
Who Is Behind The Zambezi Resilience Programme?
The Harare workshop brought together a powerful coalition. At its core were the Zambezi Watercourse Commission (ZAMCOM), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Global Mechanism of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Government of Zimbabwe.
Around the table sat UNCCD National Focal Points from across the Southern African Development Community (SADC), river basin organisations, operators of major dams on the Zambezi, regional technical partners, civil society groups and private sector players.
FFA Explainer:
UNCCD National Focal Points are officials appointed by their governments to coordinate national efforts on combating land degradation and desertification. They act as the main link between their country and the UNCCD, helping align local projects with global support and finance.
Participants examined BREFOLE‑ZRB’s technical designs, financing allocations, implementation arrangements, geographic priorities, and environmental and social safeguards. They also checked how the programme aligns with the Strategic Plan for the Zambezi Watercourse (ZSP 2018–2040), the Southern Africa Great Green Wall Initiative and national development agendas.
For Zimbabwe, that means linking BREFOLE‑ZRB with the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1), which places agriculture, water security and climate resilience at the centre of economic recovery and growth.
What Exactly Will The US$130 Million Fund Do?
The regional programme carries a financing package of around US$130 million, drawn from sources including the Climate Investment Funds, the African Development Bank, the African Development Fund and the Global Environment Facility.
BREFOLE‑ZRB is built around four main components:
- Natural resources management – restoring degraded landscapes and improving how water is managed along the basin.
- Community climate resilience – promoting climate‑smart agriculture, building stronger value chains and opening economic opportunities for women and youth.
- Institutional capacity and knowledge – strengthening the skills, systems and data needed to plan, implement and monitor projects.
- Coordination – ensuring eight national programmes move in the same direction and contribute to shared basin‑wide results.
FFA Explainer:
Climate‑smart agriculture refers to farming practices that increase productivity, help farmers adapt to climate change and, where possible, reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Examples include drought‑tolerant seed varieties, conservation agriculture, efficient irrigation and better weather information services.
For communities along the Zambezi – from fisherfolk on Lake Kariba to smallholder irrigation farmers in Binga, Chiredzi or Mazowe – these components should translate into restored land, better‑managed water, farming methods that can withstand erratic rainfall, and new sources of income, particularly for women and young people.
How Will Countries Balance National And Basin Priorities?
That balance between national interests and regional impact sat at the heart of the Harare discussions. ZAMCOM Executive Secretary Felix Ngamlagosi tackled it head‑on.
“While the individual investments must respond to the priorities of each participating country, they must all contribute to common basin‑wide results,” he said.
Climate shocks, land degradation and declining ecosystem services do not stop at immigration checkpoints. Flood control in one country can safeguard crops downstream. Unsustainable farming upstream can send silt into a dam hundreds of kilometres away. The workshop’s message was clear: responses must be coordinated regionally to match the nature of the threats.
Speaking for the SADC Secretariat, Dr Dumsani Mndzebele, Acting Senior Programme Manager for the Water Division, welcomed the way different funding streams are being knitted together. He pointed to BREFOLE‑ZRB’s potential to strengthen resilience through sustainable agriculture, nature‑based solutions and improved land and water management.
FFA Explainer:
Nature‑based solutions use natural systems or processes – such as wetlands, forests or grasslands – to address challenges like floods, droughts or soil erosion. For farmers, that can mean protecting riverbanks with vegetation, restoring wetlands that store floodwater, or agroforestry systems that stabilise soil and improve microclimates.
What Did The Harare Workshop Decide?
From the opening session, the tone was one of urgency. Engineer Emma Ndhlovu, Senior Water Officer in Zambia’s Ministry of Water Development and Sanitation, set the agenda.
“The time has come to move from programme preparation to programme ownership and action,” she told delegates, calling for sustained engagement across sectors and borders.
Speakers returned repeatedly to that theme – moving from concept papers to real change on farms, grazing lands and riverbanks.
Dr Laouali Garba, Division Manager for Agricultural Research, Production and Sustainability at the African Development Bank, reached for a metaphor farmers across the basin would recognise.
“We planted together, and we need to harvest together for the benefit of the most vulnerable communities of the Zambezi basin,” he said.
He stressed that the money on the table must turn into community resilience, food security, jobs for women and youth, and climate change mitigation – and reaffirmed the Bank’s commitment to backing a bankable investment programme for the basin.
From the technical break‑out groups came a series of recommendations designed to keep countries accountable. ZAMCOM member states were urged to:
- Commit at least 10 percent of their national budgets to activities that deliver benefits tied to the basin programme and to spending in priority areas.
- Maintain strong implementation capacity close to communities, not only in capital cities.
- Track gender outcomes carefully so that women see tangible benefits.
- Strengthen land governance to reduce degradation and tenure disputes.
- Align monitoring systems so that progress in one country can be compared with progress in another.
What Does This Mean For Zimbabwean Farmers?
Zimbabwe’s delegation, led technically by Engineer Tinayeshe Mutazu, Chief Director for Water Resources, Irrigation Development and National WASH Coordination, made it clear that projects must deliver real benefits on the ground. Speaking on behalf of Permanent Secretary Professor Obert Jiri, he pressed for national ownership, strong implementation plans and safeguards that are ready to go.
For Zimbabwe, BREFOLE‑ZRB offers a chance to deepen work already under way in the Zambezi catchments. In Mbire and Muzarabani districts, for example, smallholder farmers are already experimenting with drought‑tolerant maize varieties, conservation agriculture and solar‑powered irrigation to stabilise yields as the climate shifts. Along the Gwayi and Manyame sub‑catchments, communities are restoring degraded hillsides and riverbanks to cut erosion that silts up downstream dams, including Kariba.
Properly aligned with NDS1 and local development plans, BREFOLE‑ZRB investments could support:
- Smallholder irrigation rehabilitation and new, efficient schemes using low‑pressure drip or sprinkler systems.
- Training and inputs for climate‑smart cropping, including small grains in drier wards.
- Value addition for river‑linked value chains such as horticulture, fisheries and livestock, echoing lessons from horticulture hubs elsewhere in the country.
- Land restoration projects that protect both farms and downstream hydropower assets.
For youth in Binga, Kariba, Hwange or Mashonaland West, that could mean jobs not only in farming, but also in processing, cold‑chain logistics and climate services. For women, it opens space to grow and sell higher‑value crops, participate in water user associations and access targeted finance tied to the programme.
How Does Land Restoration Connect To Water Security?
UNCCD’s message in Harare underlined a simple truth that many farmers know from experience: damaged land holds less water.
Ms Cathrine Mutambirwa, Programme Coordinator for Land Degradation Neutrality and Land Restoration at the UNCCD Global Mechanism, highlighted the partnership between UNCCD, ZAMCOM and the African Development Bank and urged countries to tap the available financing opportunities.
She emphasised that land and water sectors must work together, noting that “drought is directly linked to water resources management.” When vegetation cover disappears and soils become compacted, rain runs off instead of infiltrating. Fields dry out faster in a dry spell and floods hit harder when storms arrive. Restoring landscapes – through reforestation, rangeland management, soil conservation and wetland protection – becomes a water management strategy as much as an environmental one.
For farmers along the Zambezi, that connection is visible in every gully cut into a hillside field and every sand‑choked stream. Projects that stabilise slopes, reclaim gullies and rebuild soil organic matter can, over time, translate into steadier streamflow, longer planting windows and reduced flood damage.
What Happens Next For The Zambezi Resilience Fund?
The Harare workshop was not the final word. It was a precursor to the Appraisal Mission that will shape BREFOLE‑ZRB’s final design and determine exactly where and how the US$130 million will be spent.
In her closing remarks, delivered by Dr Garba, Mrs Eyerusalem Fasika, the African Development Bank’s Country Manager for Zimbabwe, underscored the importance of restoring degraded landscapes, strengthening climate‑resilient agriculture and creating opportunities for women and youth.
“We have a shared responsibility to prepare a high‑quality, bankable investment programme,” her remarks stated. She urged countries to send their inputs on time and complete the requirements needed to move financing forward.
The next few months will test whether the momentum in Harare can hold. Each country must refine its project pipeline, confirm co‑financing, and lock in the institutional arrangements that will carry work from basin‑level strategy down to ward‑level extension and community action.
For farmers, fishers and families who live by the Zambezi, what matters is not the number of workshops held or documents approved, but whether the river and the land around it still sustain them 10 or 20 years from now. A mother in Chirundu planting her maize a little later because the rains have shifted. A fisher in Siavonga landing a decent catch because breeding grounds upstream are protected. A young agripreneur in Kariba processing vegetables for the tourism market using water‑saving irrigation on her contract plots.
If BREFOLE‑ZRB succeeds, these quiet changes – more resilient harvests, cleaner rivers, steadier incomes – will be the real measure of a basin choosing to harvest together what it has planted together.
📢 Subscribe to our WhatsApp Channel to Get Our Updates On Your Mobile
About The Author
