Our charity work in Zimbabwe

Since 2008, the economy has continued to grow and annual inflation has now stabilised. Education and health services continue to improve and medicine and school books are more readily available.

Enhancing lives

Our livelihoods programme focuses primarily on food, incomes and markets. We operate five main activities which all aim to improve income and access to food for poor men and women in the three districts where we work. These are:

• Access to agricultural inputs
• Conservation farming
• Nutrition gardens
• Small livestock
• Provision of water

Focusing on improvement

We wanted to develop a better programme plan so we carried out extensive analysis of the poorest groups in our target areas and revised our programme based on the findings. We will be implementing it from June 2011. It will focus on community development as well as capacity building of local charity groups and government structures.

Reduced need for food distribution

Access to food has continued to improve in 2010 and food aid programmes have been reduced. This is seen as a hugely positive move which reduces dependency and strengthens our livelihoods programme. 

Alongside reduced food distribution, Concern is running cash transfers to assist people to buy surplus maize which is available in the area. While there are some occasional cases of cholera, the situation has greatly improved since 2008. Stocks are being kept on standby for any further outbreaks. 

Conservation agriculture

Concern started promoting conservation agriculture in Zimbabwe in 2004 as part of a food distribution and relief programme. The results have been impressive. In six years, the farmers we work with have gone from being beneficiaries of food aid to becoming the providers of food aid. Below is a  video showing conservation farming in Zimbabwe in action.

HIV and AIDS

Our main HIV and AIDS programme in Zimbabwe was completed in March 2011. This focused on community empowerment and HIV prevention. We are currently drafting a follow-up programme, drawing on the successful components of the previous programme while also adopting new initiatives and ideas. The focus on gender equality will remain central to our programme.

In depth

• Read the 2010 annual report about our work in Zimbabwe
• Take a look at reports and publications about our work in Zimbabwe
• Find out more about conservation agriculture