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By Ross Moyo
Zimbabwe has earned a period of economic stability but must now ensure that investment reaches every village, growth point and corridor if it is to attain upper middle-income status, the United Nations Development Programme has said.
On the margins of the Zimbabwe Economic Development Conference 2026 in Bulawayo, UNDP Zimbabwe resident representative Ayodele Odusola said evidence from the organisation’s Last Mile Project shows that investment in rural areas is both socially beneficial and commercially viable.
Odusola used the example of Isaiah Mlambo Mahlathini, who left Hakwata village in Chipinge for South Africa in 2010 due to lack of opportunity. At the time, the village had no electricity and the nearest grid connection was 16 kilometres away. Women at the local clinic gave birth by candlelight.
Today, Mahlathini has returned and runs a carpentry business powered by a 200-kilowatt solar mini-grid built under the Climate Adaptation, Water and Energy Programme, a partnership between the government, UNDP and funding from the United Kingdom. The grid cost about US$614,000 and powers 85 homes, 18 businesses, a school, a clinic and three community boreholes.
Odusola said the case illustrates that smart infrastructure should create opportunity everywhere, not just in cities.
He noted that Zimbabwe’s economy grew by an estimated 8.3 percent in 2025 and in January 2026 annual inflation fell to single digits for the first time in over three decades. The exchange rate has stabilised and government is targeting a budget deficit of around 0.5 percent of GDP. Progress on arrears clearance, implementation of the Staff-Monitored Programme with the IMF and admission to the New Development Bank have helped rebuild investor confidence.
However, he said the country invests around 9 percent of its GDP, compared to a sub-Saharan African average closer to 25 percent. No country has reached upper middle-income status at that rate of investment, he said, and closing the gap is the central economic task to 2030.
Odusola said smart infrastructure — using clean energy, digital technology and data — offers Zimbabwe a chance to leapfrog. While ZEDCON’s pillars of sustainable energy, smart cities, ICT connectivity, rail and homegrown fintech are important, most Zimbabweans still live in rural areas and infrastructure plans must consider who they reach.
He said last-mile investments are often seen as expensive social projects but UNDP experience shows they make business sense. The Hakwata mini-grid, for example, operates as a utility with users paying a tariff that funds maintenance. Private company Mobility for Africa has introduced electric tricycles for transport. In one year, teacher retention at the local primary school rose by 92 percent, enrolment from 600 to over 800 and the pass rate from 60 to 76.6 percent.
In health, 1,263 health facilities, about 70 percent of the national total, have been solarised since 2016 by the Ministry of Health and Child Care, the Global Fund and UNDP, with over 11 megawatts of combined capacity. The system at NatPharm’s Harare warehouse alone is projected to save around US$150,000 a year in electricity.
In agriculture, at Gororo Irrigation Scheme 72 families harvested more than 68 tonnes across three cycles, earning over US$64,000 and reaching three export markets. At Vimbanayi, farmers are harvesting over three tonnes of chillies a day for private buyers.
Odusola said village business units, which bring water, energy, food production and enterprise together, must operate as businesses to attract capital, a model government has endorsed.
He said the question is no longer whether such investments work but how to finance them at scale. UNDP, together with the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency and CrossBoundary Advisory, produced an SDG Impact Investment Map that identified 98 investment opportunities requiring about US$923 million, with 31 prioritised opportunities needing US$535 million. About 85 investors whose mandates fit Zimbabwe were identified, 35 already active in the country.
The UNDP Representative said capital exists but frictions remain, including small project sizes and lack of investor-ready documentation. He proposed five actions: establishing a government-anchored coordination function working with ZIDA; improving investor communication on foreign exchange repatriation rules; creating a platform to prepare and bundle projects; expanding use of guarantee instruments from ATIDI, the African Guarantee Fund and the African Development Bank and exploring a domestic credit guarantee scheme; and mobilising domestic capital, noting that around 74 percent of pension fund assets are in real estate.
Odusola added that government, private sector, academics, development partners, citizens and the diaspora all have roles to play in closing the investment gap.
ZEDCON 2026 was held at the Zimbabwe International Exhibition Centre in Bulawayo from September 29 to October 3 under the theme “Smart Infrastructure for an Upper Middle-Income Society: Leaving No One and No Place Behind”.
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