Zim hosts forum to identify investment opportunities in agriculture

Monalisa Chikwengo

THE national push to modernise agriculture continues to gain traction with the Government and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) hosting a forum aimed at connecting investors with all the country’s provinces, as the drive to identify investment opportunities in the agriculture sector intensifies.

Running under the theme: “Accelerating Investments in Zimbabwe’s Agri-Food Systems” the forum was held from in Harare from May 10 to 12, 2023.

The forum provided matchmaking services, allowing investors to identify projects that aligned with their investment criteria and interests in line with Zimbabwe’s economic development goals. It was part of the Hand-in-Hand (HiHi) investment forum held in Rome in October 2022.

Participating provinces were given a platform to present their agricultural investment plans and priorities given that the purpose of the forum was to attract investment to support the country’s agro-food systems in line with provincial expectations.

The meeting was a follow up on the first one held in May 2022 in Victoria Falls and was targeting to deepen consultations and enhance partnerships, define priorities and targeted investments for agri-food systems transformation in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe successfully participated in, and presented investment cases at the first HiHi investment forum in Rome in October 2022, which generated a lot of interest from potential investors.

Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, Dr Anxious Masuka officially opened the forum acknowledging the importance of the HiHi while also challenging the country to use the forum as a strategic platform to reflect on their progress in developing and implementing their investment plans.

“The FAO flagship programme HiHi supports the execution of nation-led and nation-owned programmes to speed up the transformation of agri-food systems with the aim of alleviating poverty, putting an end to hunger and malnutrition and reducing inequalities,” he said.

Dr Masuka emphasised the need appreciate the forum’s role in enabling interaction between provinces and investors describing it as the equivalent of match-making event for local producers, regional and international investors.

“With the current quadruple nature of our agriculture, comprising communal, smallholder, large-scale and estate agriculture, we must explore each province’s composition of these and map the landscape for opportunities for development across these sectors,” he said.

The forum brought together more than 150 key stakeholders from across the agriculture sector and provided an opportunity to develop partnerships and collaborations to boost the sector’s growth and development.

FAO sub-regional coordinator for Southern Africa, Mr Patrice Talla said the HiHi initiative was an inspiring catalyst in the formation of purposeful collaborative partnerships to fight poverty and hunger.

“We must harness the power of these collaborative and purposeful partnerships that are being forged at both local and international levels through this initiative,” he said.