Ivan Zhakata

Herald Correspondent

Zimbabwe risks becoming a digital colony if it fails to control its data and develop sovereign digital infrastructure, Information Communication Technology (ICT), Postal and Courier Services Minister Tatenda Mavetera has said.

Speaking at the official launch of Ndarama Technologies and a national seminar on digital sovereignty as an enabler to Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the Harare Institute of Technology on Wednesday, Minister Mavetera said the country must ensure that its data was harnessed for national development.

“Data is the new gold but only if you own the mine, control the refinery, and mint the coin,” she said.

“This is the essence of digital sovereignty. It is about ensuring that Zimbabwe’s data— our digital gold —serves Zimbabwe’s interests first.”

Minister Mavetera said AI systems deployed in critical sectors such as agriculture, health and financial services should be developed using local data, languages and cultural contexts.

She said failure to achieve digital sovereignty could leave Zimbabwe dependent on foreign technologies and systems.

“Without sovereignty, we risk becoming a digital colony, where our data is extracted, refined elsewhere, and sold back to us as finished products,” she said.

Minister Mavetera said Government, through the Smart Zimbabwe 2030 Master Plan, was prioritising the establishment of a National Data Centre ecosystem to provide secure and localised infrastructure for Government and national data.

She said the Government will also scale up AI literacy programmes through the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) and innovation hubs.

The programmes will go beyond basic digital literacy to promote computational thinking, coding and AI fundamentals from secondary school level upwards.

The minister said her ministry will table the Zimbabwe AI Ethics Framework by the end of the first quarter of next year.

The framework, she said, will ensure that AI systems deployed in Zimbabwe were fair, transparent and free from bias.

Government will also establish regulatory sandboxes to allow start-ups to test AI solutions under a progressive regulatory environment without immediately facing the full weight of existing regulations.

Minister Mavetera said Zimbabwe will promote local content in AI development, including systems capable of understanding Shona, Ndebele and other indigenous languages.

She said universities will play a leading role in developing local language data sets.

The minister also announced the creation of the Zimbabwe Digital Innovation Commons, a partnership bringing together Government, industry and academia to promote innovation.

She said a percentage of the Universal Services Fund will be ring-fenced to co-finance AI projects for the public good, particularly in precision agriculture and smart health diagnostics.

Minister Mavetera also officially launched the Ndarama Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System, which she described as the digital “nervous system” of Government.

The system integrates finance, human resources, supply chain and asset management across the public sector.

“By consolidating our back-end operations into a single, sovereign platform, we are doing more than cutting down on ghost workers or procurement leakages—though it will ruthlessly do both,” she said.

Minister Mavetera said the Ndarama ERP will create a reliable data foundation for the deployment of AI in Government.

The system enables Treasury to use predictive AI to forecast revenue and assess the impact of events such as droughts on the fiscus, while auditors can use pattern-recognition technologies to identify anomalies before public funds were lost.

Minister Mavetera said Government will continue investing in high-performance computing, secure data centres, resilient connectivity and trusted cloud services to strengthen the country’s digital infrastructure.

She outlined five strategic priorities for Zimbabwe’s AI development, including the establishment of a National Digital Sovereignty Framework, expanding access to sovereign computing capabilities and accelerating AI adoption in agriculture, mining, health, education, manufacturing and public administration.

Other priorities are promoting indigenous language AI and strengthening the country’s innovation ecosystem through research commercialisation, support for start-ups, investment attraction and public-private partnerships.

Minister Mavetera said Government will continue fostering an enabling policy environment for local technology companies such as Ndarama Technologies to grow into regional technology champions.

“Let us therefore build Artificial Intelligence that serves our people, reflects our values and advances our national development aspirations. Let us ensure Zimbabwe becomes a recognised leader in Africa’s digital transformation,” she said.