One of Zimbabwe showcasing opportunity is the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF), which is an annual even and this year’s 63rd edition was held from 25-29 of April 2023. This year ZITF was themed “Continuous innovation, Global competitiveness” to continue to encourage various entities in their innovation journey and expose potential business partners to such innovations. It was at this exhibition that the European Union showcased the various development initiatives it is funding throughout the country with various development partners. It was indicated that the European Union is supporting projects worth USD $600 million running in Zimbabwe and very limited number of people know about and hence the ZITF is the appropriate platform to showcase these initiatives.
It was the first time for the European Union to showcase its various development initiative at the ZITF with a huge stand stretching 30 metres housing various development partners that included: CIRAD (RAIZ Project); SNV; COPSE; Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) and ZAGP, and the French Embassy, Italy and Netherlands (also see this article: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/delegations/zimbabwe/european-union-delegation-zimbabwe-presents-its-own-stand-zimbabwe_en) . The European Union had the second biggest exhibition stand and it was awarded the first prize for the Best International Exhibitor and the EU Ambassador Jobst Von Kirchman was present to receive the award (see https://twitter.com/euinzim/status/1652259744428576770) . The RAIZ project had the pleasure of also explaining its project research activities and how this can assist in providing evidence for informing policy to the EU Ambassador who in turn assisted the high level government officials during their tour of the EU stand. The RAIZ project experienced traffic from the various stakeholders including government officials; Hon General (Rtd) VP C. Chiwenga and H.E. ED Mnangagwa were also exposed to the various interventions supported by the European Union including the RAIZ project. Both the Ambassador and the Vice President reiterated on the importance of research to strengthen climate resilience in the agricultural sector especially for smallholder farmers. Research institutions especially state universities were really interested in the RAIZ project and these included: Marondera University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (MUAST), Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) and ARUPE University and the Private Sector: Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) looking at possible synergies between the RAIZ project and AFC Insurance products especially in the face of climate change. 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 Zimbabwe and Southern Africa.
The RAIZ Project Manager (extreme left) explaining the RAIZ research activities to his audience EU Ambassador J. V. Kirkman (second from left), Hon general (Rtd) Vice President C. Chiwenga; Hon Dr. Sekai Nzenza (Minister of Industry and Commerce).
