WATCH: ZANU-PF holds workshop to strengthen grassroots economic empowerment

ZANU-PF’s Department of Economic Development and Empowerment is holding a Secretaries Capacity Building and Strategic Workplan Development 2026 workshop in Bulawayo, aimed at strengthening grassroots structures to drive inclusive economic participation in line with Vision 2030.

The workshop brings together party secretaries and representatives from key Government ministries to align empowerment programmes with national development priorities under the National Development Strategy (NDS).

Zanu-PF Politburo Member and Secretary for Economic Development and Empowerment, Dr Sithembiso Nyoni, said the department has three constitutional mandates, chief among them ensuring that those previously marginalised are integrated into mainstream economic activities.

“His Excellency is launching empowerment for our party and for our communities.
“I think it is very important that as a department that needs empowerment we prepare our people for that and we have three mandates in our constitution.

“The first one is to make sure that those who were left out of the economic development, the marginalised are included.
“We are an inclusive department, a department that is a forum to make sure that those people that were left out of the economic development are now brought on board,” she said.

Dr Nyoni emphasised that empowerment requires supportive policies and close collaboration with Government institutions.
“We also need to make a policy to do that which we have started. We need to liaise with government, this is why the government ministries are here, so that people know the government belongs to them, the government is there for them.

“As a ministry we are saying government is there to empower you,” she said, adding that the department is also mandated to promote decent workspaces and conducive business environments.
She stressed that funds availed through the party are not meant to foster dependency.

“But the key really is that we want a different mindset into funds that are coming from the party, they are not coming there to create dependency or to give you crutches, they are coming there to make sure that you are grounded, you have confidence to start your business you are empowered mentally, intellectually with skills and also practically so that you put money in your pocket and you become part of the middle income society by 2030.

“Without us doing that 2030 would be a talk show,” she said.
She also called for stronger linkages between small enterprises and established industries to avoid a dual economy.

“The Ministry of Industry… is here to create jobs, but also to create opportunities from big industries to look down and say who has a scheme, which SME can we contract backward and forward,” she said.
Local authorities, she added, must plan for those at the base of the economic pyramid so that empowered citizens are fully integrated into mainstream economic planning.

The workshop is expected to produce a 2026 strategic workplan focused on inclusion, SME integration and sustainable empowerment towards Vision 2030.