Women are the backbone of agriculture in Zimbabwe's rural communities, yet limited land rights continue to undermine food security and livelihoods, while worsening droughts, floods, and crop failures deepen their vulnerability to climate change. Too often, women's voices are missing from the decision-making spaces that shape their futures.
Under the FACE (Feminists for Alternatives on Climate and Environment) Programme, ZFU is rolling this work out in phases. It began in Masvingo Province and Mashonaland Central Province, empowering women in agriculture through targeted leadership training and the creation of supportive networks that help them overcome structural barriers and strengthen their role across the agricultural value chain. Building on this foundation, the programme expanded into Matabeleland North and South, where women and girls face some of the country's most severe climate challenges deforestation, soil degradation, and water scarcity that erode already fragile livelihoods. This second phase paid particular attention to the San community, whose women and girls are among the most marginalised in the area, with limited access to climate information, resources, and decision-making, compounding climate injustice with gender inequality.
The project follows a renewed, community driven, women led model, combining learning, action, and advocacy at ward/community, district, and national levels.
- Masvingo Province (Gutu, Masvingo, and Zaka districts) and Mashonaland Central Province (Guruve and Shamva districts)
- After Renewal it ran in parallel with Matabeleland North and South, with a particular focus on Tsholotsho, an area falling within Climate Regions 4 and 5 that face high vulnerability to drought and environmental degradation. This phase built on strong existing ZFU and Rural Women's Assembly (RWA) community structures, and specifically reached the San community, given the acute marginalisation of San women and girls in the area. The phase
Each phase runs over a six-month cycle the first in 2025 then renewed for January–June 2026, working through ZFU's women's wing structures alongside traditional leadership in the target districts.
- Strengthen a rural women and girls led climate and environmental movement through networking and strategic stakeholder engagement reaching 1,750 women. and 1,320 women and girls in Matabeleland, including the San community.
- Raise awareness of women's and girls' role in climate-resilient agriculture and environmental governance, tackling key social, economic, and institutional barriers including the compounded exclusion faced by San women and girls in Matabeleland.
- Improve access to agroecology, environmental resources, technical support, climate information, and sustainable markets and livelihoods, through a gender lens and equity-driven approach that integrates traditional knowledge with modern adaptation tools.
Masvingo province and Mashonaland central reached 1,450 rural women farmers and 280 young women farmers, working alongside traditional leaders and community elders. Matabeleland reached 1,200 women and 120 girls (1,320 total, including San women and girls), with additional engagement from traditional leaders. Combined activities include forming women led groups and cooperatives; training on land, climate, and environmental rights; leadership and public speaking mentorship, feminist climate, agroecology, and leadership workshops, community climate action circles, and community environmental actions such as tree planting and land restoration, soil conservation and water harvesting, agroecology and indigenous seed systems, biochar and other climate resilient practices, and climate and environmental justice advocacy campaigns. Communities are expected to actively participate in trainings and action circles, support the leadership of women and girls, protect land, forests, and water resources, and help establish a para legal support system for land and environmental issues among ZFU members.
Expected outcomes across the Provinces include improved land security for women, stronger women's leadership within ZFU structures, better food security and incomes, increased resilience to climate change, reduced patriarchal barriers and gender inequality, and restored ecosystems.
Rural Women's Assembly (RWA)