Online Reporter
Gibson Mhaka-Zimpapers Politics Hub
WHEN Zimbabwe hosts the 25th Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Summit in Harare on October 22, it will be more than another gathering of regional leaders.
It will be another chapter in a diplomatic narrative that has been unfolding since the advent of the Second Republic in 2017 — a story in which Zimbabwe has steadily re-emerged as a venue of choice for high-level regional and international meetings.
The COMESA Summit, where Zimbabwe will assume the chairmanship of the regional bloc, comes after a succession of major summits, ministerial meetings, business conferences, investment forums and international gatherings hosted by the country.
The pattern is difficult to ignore.
From SADC meetings to wildlife and conservation summits, from investment and business engagements to tourism and development conferences, Zimbabwe has increasingly positioned itself as a place where the region and the wider international community can meet, deliberate and do business.
The significance of this development becomes clearer when viewed against the foreign-policy philosophy of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration — “a friend to all and an enemy to none” and its economic corollary, “Zimbabwe is open for business.”
These have not merely been slogans deployed at diplomatic gatherings. They have increasingly become pillars of the Second Republic’s re-engagement and engagement strategy, designed to pull Zimbabwe out of the diplomatic isolation of the past and restore the country to the centre of regional and international affairs.
Hosting a summit is, after all, an exercise in diplomacy.
It brings presidents, ministers, diplomats, investors, development partners, business executives and international organisations into the country. It provides the host nation with an opportunity to shape the agenda, showcase its infrastructure, sell its investment opportunities and project its national image.
For Zimbabwe, this has acquired particular importance because the Second Republic inherited a country whose international relations had been strained by years of confrontation with Western countries.
President Mnangagwa’s response was to pursue engagement and re-engagement while insisting that Zimbabwe would maintain relations across political and ideological divides.
The philosophy is straightforward: Zimbabwe does not have permanent enemies in international relations and is prepared to work with countries willing to work with it.
This is precisely where the summit diplomacy of the Second Republic becomes significant.
The first major test came in the regional arena.
Zimbabwe continued participating actively in SADC structures and assumed the chairmanship of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation before the regional bloc’s 40th Summit in 2020. Although the Covid-19 pandemic forced the 2020 SADC Summit into a virtual format, Zimbabwe remained deeply involved in the regional organisation’s political and security architecture.
The pandemic, naturally, interrupted the traditional business of physical summits. But once international travel and physical meetings resumed, Zimbabwe’s role as a meeting place gathered momentum.
One of the clearest demonstrations came with the 44th SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government, held in Harare in August 2024, when Zimbabwe assumed the SADC chairmanship.
The summit was preceded by the SADC Industrialisation Week and a series of technical and ministerial meetings, bringing together governments, the private sector, development institutions, multinational corporations, researchers and civil society.
The significance of that gathering went beyond the formal handover of the SADC chairmanship.
The summit attracted an exceptionally high level of attendance, with only three SADC Heads of State reportedly absent — the highest attendance at a SADC summit in a decade.
For a country once frequently portrayed through the lens of political isolation, the sight of regional leaders converging on Harare carried considerable diplomatic symbolism.
It showed that Zimbabwe was not merely participating in regional diplomacy; it was increasingly becoming a place where regional diplomacy is being conducted.
The Second Republic’s summit diplomacy has also been visible beyond SADC.
In 2022, Zimbabwe hosted an African Elephant Summit in Victoria Falls, bringing together representatives from 14 African countries as well as diplomats from Japan and China to discuss elephant conservation, wildlife management and the sustainable utilisation of wildlife resources.
The choice of Victoria Falls was itself strategic.
The resort town is not simply a tourist attraction. It has become an increasingly important diplomatic and conferencing hub, combining international-class hospitality infrastructure with one of Africa’s most recognisable tourism brands.
That combination of tourism, infrastructure and diplomacy has become one of Zimbabwe’s strongest selling points in the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions market.
The momentum continued into 2024.
Zimbabwe hosted the SADC Industrialisation Week in Harare, followed by the 44th SADC Summit. The country also hosted the SADC Parliamentary Forum meetings and other ministerial and technical engagements, while Victoria Falls became a venue for international tourism and development-related gatherings.
In November 2024, Harare again became the centre of regional diplomacy when Zimbabwe hosted the SADC Extraordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government, which focused on the security situation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
This was particularly significant because an extraordinary summit is not a routine event. It is convened when circumstances require leaders to come together urgently to make decisions on matters affecting the region.
The decision to hold the meeting in Harare was, therefore, another vote of confidence in Zimbabwe’s ability to provide the diplomatic and logistical platform required for high-level regional consultations.
That confidence continued into 2025.
Zimbabwe hosted the SADC Extraordinary Summit on the DRC crisis in January 2025, while later in the year Harare hosted the SADC Transfrontier Conservation Areas International Conference and Summit, held from May 19 to 23 to mark 25 years of regional cooperation on transfrontier conservation areas. The programme culminated in a Heads of State summit.
These meetings may appear different in subject matter — security on one hand and conservation on the other — but collectively they demonstrate something important: Zimbabwe’s hosting capacity is no longer confined to one diplomatic sector.
It can host political summits, security meetings, economic conferences, environmental gatherings and investment-related events.
And now comes COMESA.
The 25th COMESA Summit is expected to focus on economic integration, industrialisation and investment promotion.
There is an important political-economic message embedded in that development.
SADC and COMESA are two of the most important regional economic organisations on the continent. To chair both organisations in succession, while hosting their high-level meetings, places Zimbabwe in a strategic position to influence conversations around regional integration, industrialisation, infrastructure, investment and trade.
It also fits neatly into President Mnangagwa’s Vision 2030 agenda.
The Second Republic has consistently argued that Zimbabwe must transform itself into an upper-middle-income economy by 2030. Such transformation cannot happen in diplomatic isolation.
Zimbabwe requires markets, capital, technology, partnerships, infrastructure and access to regional value chains.
This is why the “Zimbabwe is open for business” mantra is important to understanding the country’s summit diplomacy.
Every summit hosted in Zimbabwe creates an opportunity to put the country’s investment proposition directly before people who matter — Heads of State, ministers, development financiers, multinational corporations and private-sector leaders.
The November 2024 debt conference in Harare, for instance, brought together creditors, development partners, private-sector actors and financial experts as Zimbabwe sought to advance its debt-resolution and international financial re-engagement efforts. Reuters reported that President Mnangagwa and African Development Bank president Akinwumi Adesina attended the meeting.
That is diplomacy with an economic purpose.
The same philosophy can be seen in the country’s growing ability to attract United Nations-related meetings.
In 2024, Victoria Falls hosted the first UN Tourism Regional Forum on Gastronomy Tourism for Africa, while in 2026 the resort city hosted the 23rd UN Tourism Committee on Tourism and Sustainability and the 2nd UN Tourism Regional Congress on Women Empowerment in Tourism in Africa.
The International Solar Alliance has also selected Victoria Falls as the venue for its 8th Regional Committee meeting for Africa, bringing together governments, energy specialists and development partners.
The significance of these gatherings is not merely that delegates spend a few days in Zimbabwe.
Every successful conference strengthens the country’s reputation as a meetings destination. Hotels benefit. Airlines benefit. Restaurants, transport operators, tour companies and small businesses benefit. More importantly, visiting delegates experience Zimbabwe beyond the political narratives that have dominated international coverage for years.
This is the soft-power dimension of summit diplomacy.
A country that hosts the world repeatedly gets an opportunity to tell its own story.
For Zimbabwe, the story is increasingly about a peaceful tourism destination, a country with sophisticated conference facilities, a strategic geographical location, abundant natural resources, a skilled population and an economy seeking investment.
Harare’s modern conference infrastructure and Victoria Falls’ global tourism brand give Zimbabwe a particularly attractive combination.
The country’s summit diplomacy therefore cannot be divorced from its foreign-policy philosophy.
“A friend to all and an enemy to none” means Zimbabwe can engage China without closing the door to the West; engage Russia while strengthening African partnerships; deepen SADC and COMESA relations while pursuing broader global economic engagement.
The President has repeatedly linked this diplomatic approach to the economic objective of keeping Zimbabwe open for business.
The growing number of international meetings hosted locally is one manifestation of that approach.
It is also why the COMESA Summit should not be viewed as an isolated event.
Rather, it is part of a continuum that stretches from the Second Republic’s early re-engagement drive, through regional SADC responsibilities, conservation and tourism diplomacy, investment conferences, debt-resolution engagements and the increasingly packed international calendar in Harare and Victoria Falls.
Zimbabwe’s emergence as a summit destination is therefore both a diplomatic achievement and an economic opportunity.
The challenge now is to convert visibility into tangible results.
A summit should not end when the last presidential jet leaves the runway.
The real measure of success is what follows — investment commitments, new trade deals, tourism arrivals, regional projects, industrial partnerships, technology transfers and stronger diplomatic relationships.
That is where the Second Republic’s summit diplomacy will ultimately be judged.
The COMESA Summit provides another opportunity.
As Zimbabwe prepares to welcome leaders from across Eastern and Southern Africa, the country is not merely preparing conference rooms, hotels and security arrangements.
It is presenting itself.
It is saying that Zimbabwe is ready to host, ready to engage and, most importantly, ready to do business.
The journey from diplomatic re-engagement to becoming a preferred summit destination has not happened overnight. But the succession of regional and international gatherings hosted since the advent of the Second Republic suggests that Zimbabwe has steadily reclaimed something more valuable than the ability to stage conferences.
It has reclaimed diplomatic centrality.
And in an increasingly competitive African diplomatic and economic landscape, being the place where leaders meet can be the beginning of becoming the place where decisions, investments and partnerships are made.
