RAIZ Project Exhibiting at the 64th Edition of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair, 2025

One of Zimbabwe showcasing opportunity is the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF), which is an annual even and this year’s 65^th Edition was held from 21-26 of April 2025. ZITF 2025 is a vital avenue for Zimbabwe to engage with potential investors across various sectors, including manufacturing, agriculture, mining, ICT and energy. It provides an opportunity for government and private stakeholders to highlight the country’s investment climate, reforms, and opportunities. This year, confirmed participating countries include Afghanistan, Angola, Austria, Belarus, Botswana, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Rwanda, South Africa, Sweden, Tanzania, the UK, USA, UAE, Zambia, and the EU Delegation. This year’s 2025 ZITF edition was the third year in which the European Union is showcasing the various interventions and development initiatives it is funding through the country with support from different development partners. These interventions included: research in agroecology; feed for fish and fish production; women empowerment sustainable wildlife management; youth developments; arts and culture.

The RAIZ project had the pleasure of also explaining its project research activities and how this can assist in producing scientific evidence for informing policy to the Acting Provincial Director/Mashonaland East Province who is new in the province and has the pleasure of explaining the project to him and to gunner more support on the future policy dialogue discussions later in the year.  Other Development Partners are really interested in the RAIZ project research actions and these included: United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), Meteorological Services Departments (MSD), Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT) and the private sector like Syngenta, ECONET for exploring possible synergies between the RAIZ project and some of the work of these institutions.  With all these organisations or institutions, the RAIZ project has had interest and an opportunity to explore opportunities that could assist the project implementation and below are some of the issues that were discussed and could be explored further:

• WFP – has been working with the MSD over the years to strengthen Climate Information Services (CIS) and setting up automated weather stations across the country and hence an opportunity to tap into the already existing climate data in the areas of interest.
• URBAN FUTURES – they were interested in our agroecology research work and moreso, that they are planning for a conference with many different stakeholders including high level government personnel with interest in rural and agricultural development in Zimbabwe. The intend is to be invited to this conference as an opportunity for RAIZ project to present its policy briefs and engages with these key stakeholders in the agriculture space.
• MSD – we had an opportunity to further carry on from our initial discussions on possible collaborations with MSD on agroclimatology and access to historical climate data, capacity building and publications.
• ZIMSTAT – the discussion held with ZIMSTAT personnel was our contribution of key questions to the nationwide surveys that are carried out by the ZIMSTAT. There is an opportunity for RAIZ to contribute significantly in the discussions on key questions that must be answered.
• ECONET – the discussion centred around exploring an option of setting up automated weather stations at their network infrastructure (booster stations) that are scattered across the country and they are manned and these persons are potential for manual record keeping where necessary. This was indicated as an explorable option with ECONET management through the ZITF contact.
• SYNGENTA – it interested at the opportunity of meeting with the same farmers especially those interested in horticulture so that they can provide free technical advice to farmers interested in using Syngenta seeds, pesticides and herbicides for judicious application and usage. This could be an opportunity for farmers interested in horticulture and especially during the dry period when farmers can engage in horticulture production for more food options and income diversification.
• Urban Futures – the organisation is undertaking an agroecology project and are planning for policy forum in Bulawayo later in the year and are interested in inviting RAIZ Project to present some of their research findings. Follow ups will be made in this regard and explore the potential of participating at this forum.
• Universities (National University for Science & Technology (NUST), Midlands State University (MSU) & Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT) – these mentioned universities were eager to explore research and research funding collaborations with key personnel in agriculture. There is extremely high interest in these universities for these opportunities.

This illustrated that there is a lot of interest from individuals and organisations in research especially in the agricultural sector targeting productivity and resilience building for smallholder farmers in the face of climate change in different parts of Zimbabwe.