Online Reporter
Judith Phiri
Zimpapers Business Hub
COMMUNITY Economic Empowerment Trusts (CEETs) will drive the Government’s rural industrialisation agenda under National Development Strategy 2 (NDS2), Industry and Commerce Minister Mangaliso Ndlovu has said.
NDS2, the successor to NDS1 (2020-2015), is an economic blueprint covering the five years to 2030, by which the country is expected to have achieved upper-middle-income economy status.
CEETs are a major policy shift from earlier Community Share Ownership Trusts (CSOTs) and are designed to drive rural industrialisation using local resources for agro-processing, setting up industrial parks and attracting investment.
The new approach ensures communities benefit directly from mining and agriculture through revenue sharing and project development, aligning with President Mnangagwa’s development mantra “leaving no one behind.”
In his keynote address at the CEETs Policy Dissemination Workshop in Bulawayo on Wednesday, Minister Ndlovu said the CEETs were critical to the development and economic growth of the country.
“Under NDS2, the Government is focused on aggressively growing the economy through initiatives such as the Rural Industrialisation agenda. NDS2 demands that we devolve development, expand economic participation and add our raw minerals.
“The new policy trajectory recognises CEETs as drivers of the Government’s rural industrialisation agenda as they will be directly linking local mineral wealth to job creation and sustainable economic activity,” the minister said.
He said the enhanced CEETs the Government approved in September this year marked a critical juncture in the nation’s economic empowerment journey under the Second Republic and aligned with President Mnangagwa’s development philosophy of “leaving no one and no place behind.”
Minister Ndlovu noted that the comprehensive and revitalised framework for community empowerment was not merely a policy adjustment, but a fundamental shift to ensure that the wealth generated from abundant natural resources translated into tangible and sustainable development for the communities where these resources are found.
