UN-Habitat’s focus in Zimbabwe since the establishment of the office in 2006 has been on supporting Urban governance, housing regulations and policies, capacities in urban planning, water and sanitation in peri urban settlements and city resilience strategies.

National Human Settlements Policy 2019: UN-Habitat supported the Government of Zimbabwe to come up with the new Human Settlements Policy which is set to impact over 3 million Zimbabweans. This policy is being supported to become a robust framework informed by recent global best practices and urban development frameworks (the New Urban Agenda and SDG 11) to manage the existing human settlements planning and urban management problems in the country.

City Resilience Framework for Action: UN-Habitat introduced the CityRAP tool to cities in the Eastern highlands which are prone to cyclones and floods, Mutare and Chipinge. The tool has enabled UN-Habitat to support the cities in developing resilient strategies. The Urban resilience programme being implemented in Mutare and Chipinge has been focusing more on improving safety for women and girls in cities and towns. UN-Habitat is partnering UNDP and UNICEF in supporting the CityRAP process in Chipinge.

Assessment of the impacts of cyclone IDAI on human settlements in Chimanimani and Chipinge UN-Habitat did this jointly with other UN agencies and mobilized resources for the victims. The government is looking into the recommendations given from this assessment which have strategies of enhancing human settlements in the two districts. Meanwhile, UN-Habitat is mobilizing resources for strengthening human settlement planning. This will benefit over 400,000 people in Chimanimani and Chipinge districts, 70% of whom are women, children and youth who were adversely affected during the cyclone.

Water and Sanitation project was implemented in Epworth and focused on supporting the vulnerable. 70% of the beneficiaries were women headed households whilst 90% of the builders were women.7,000 youth and children benefited.80% of the beneficiaries of reticulated toilets were the elderly while 30% were the disabled who had difficulties in accessing and using pit latrines.