Coat of Arms of Zimbabwe
Download

Priority Sectors

Sectoral transformation pathways described in the strategy: practical AI use cases across the economy and public services.

AgricultureHealthcareEducationFinancialMiningManufacturingTransportEnergyTourismDefenceSocialReal EstateGovt ServicesMSMEs

Agriculture & Food Security

The strategy highlights AI to strengthen food security and agriculture through predictive analytics and smart farming, anchored by a national Grand Challenge theme on Food Security.

Highlights

Agriculture AI: predictive analytics and smart farming.
Grand Challenge (Year 1): Food Security, with examples such as boosting maize yields.
Research agenda example: AI for drought-resistant crops.

Delivery Approach

Begin with pilot projects in each sector to showcase value and build expertise.
Scale successful initiatives to wider applications and regions.
Integrate solutions across sectors and continuously optimize for maximum impact using sector-specific KPIs.

Healthcare

The strategy highlights health priorities through national missions and secure data foundations, including foundational health datasets and challenge problems such as reducing child mortality.

Highlights

Grand Challenge example: reducing child mortality.
Foundational dataset example: National Health Records Dataset (via Pangolin/Haka/Inkakha).
Niche specialization example: disease diagnostics.

Delivery Approach

Begin with pilot projects in each sector to showcase value and build expertise.
Scale successful initiatives to wider applications and regions.
Integrate solutions across sectors and continuously optimize for maximum impact using sector-specific KPIs.

Education

The strategy advances AI and data literacy through curriculum integration, educator capacity programs, and the Nzwisiso public campaign to build understanding and trust.

Highlights

Digital Mhuri/Umdeni: AI and data literacy curriculum for primary and secondary schools.
Digital Varairidzi/Umbalisi: educator program, including Master AI Teachers.
Nzwisiso: school programmes and local-language media, alongside open ethics discussions.

Delivery Approach

Begin with pilot projects in each sector to showcase value and build expertise.
Scale successful initiatives to wider applications and regions.
Integrate solutions across sectors and continuously optimize for maximum impact using sector-specific KPIs.

Financial Services & Economic Inclusion

The strategy uses the Innovation Crucible regulatory sandbox to test and scale AI solutions safely in partnership with regulators, including the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).

Highlights

Innovation Crucible: monitored testing with temporary regulatory flexibility under agreed safeguards.
Regulatory partners include the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) and POTRAZ (alongside sector regulators).

Delivery Approach

Begin with pilot projects in each sector to showcase value and build expertise.
Scale successful initiatives to wider applications and regions.
Integrate solutions across sectors and continuously optimize for maximum impact using sector-specific KPIs.

Mining

The strategy highlights mining AI for mineral beneficiation, exploration, and predictive maintenance, alongside niche specialization areas such as sustainable mining.

Highlights

Mining AI: mineral beneficiation, exploration, and predictive maintenance.
Niche specialization example: sustainable mining.

Delivery Approach

Begin with pilot projects in each sector to showcase value and build expertise.
Scale successful initiatives to wider applications and regions.
Integrate solutions across sectors and continuously optimize for maximum impact using sector-specific KPIs.

Manufacturing & Industrial Development

The strategy positions AI as a tool to accelerate manufacturing productivity, quality, competitiveness, and resource efficiency across factories and supply chains.

Highlights

Predictive maintenance and quality-control systems to reduce downtime and defects.
Supply-chain optimization and better production planning.
Industrial modernization tied to value addition and competitiveness.

Delivery Approach

Begin with pilot projects in each sector to showcase value and build expertise.
Scale successful initiatives to wider applications and regions.
Integrate solutions across sectors and continuously optimize for maximum impact using sector-specific KPIs.

Built Environment, Transport & Logistics

The strategy describes AI for route optimization, operational efficiency, and smarter planning across the built environment, transportation, and logistics networks.

Delivery Approach

Begin with pilot projects in each sector to showcase value and build expertise.
Scale successful initiatives to wider applications and regions.
Integrate solutions across sectors and continuously optimize for maximum impact using sector-specific KPIs.

Energy

The strategy emphasizes sustainable national infrastructure for AI, including renewable energy usage and energy-efficiency metrics for national compute and data centers.

Highlights

Renewable Energy Usage: share of national HPC/data-center energy sourced from certified renewable energy.
PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness): measure of energy efficiency for national data centers.
Carbon footprint metrics for national HPC (CO2 emissions per peta-operation).

Delivery Approach

Begin with pilot projects in each sector to showcase value and build expertise.
Scale successful initiatives to wider applications and regions.
Integrate solutions across sectors and continuously optimize for maximum impact using sector-specific KPIs.

Water, Environment & Tourism

The strategy links AI to smart water management, environmental monitoring, climate resilience, and tourism promotion through better planning and personalized experiences.

Highlights

Smart water grids and predictive analytics for distribution and climate-related risk awareness.
Geospatial intelligence for biodiversity protection and environmental monitoring.
Tourism AI: destination marketing and personalized experiences.
Climate-smart applications and sustainable resource management.

Delivery Approach

Begin with pilot projects in each sector to showcase value and build expertise.
Scale successful initiatives to wider applications and regions.
Integrate solutions across sectors and continuously optimize for maximum impact using sector-specific KPIs.

Defence & Security

The strategy lists defence and security as an additional sector for AI adoption, alongside legal, ethical, and governance safeguards.

Delivery Approach

Begin with pilot projects in each sector to showcase value and build expertise.
Scale successful initiatives to wider applications and regions.
Integrate solutions across sectors and continuously optimize for maximum impact using sector-specific KPIs.

Social Services

The strategy lists social services as an additional sector for AI adoption.

Delivery Approach

Begin with pilot projects in each sector to showcase value and build expertise.
Scale successful initiatives to wider applications and regions.
Integrate solutions across sectors and continuously optimize for maximum impact using sector-specific KPIs.

Real Estate

The strategy lists real estate as an additional sector for AI adoption.

Delivery Approach

Begin with pilot projects in each sector to showcase value and build expertise.
Scale successful initiatives to wider applications and regions.
Integrate solutions across sectors and continuously optimize for maximum impact using sector-specific KPIs.

Public Service Excellence & Digital Government

The strategy describes practical digital-government pathways: intelligent service portals, automation, engagement platforms for consultation and feedback, and data-driven decision support to improve service delivery.

Highlights

Intelligent service portals that understand and respond to citizen queries.
Automated processing to speed up transactions.
Engagement platforms to strengthen consultation and feedback.
Data-driven decision support, optimized resource allocation, and performance monitoring.

Delivery Approach

Begin with pilot projects in each sector to showcase value and build expertise.
Scale successful initiatives to wider applications and regions.
Integrate solutions across sectors and continuously optimize for maximum impact using sector-specific KPIs.

Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs)

The strategy emphasizes MSME-driven AI adoption, prioritizing making AI tools accessible and affordable for SMEs as key to widespread societal acceptance.

Highlights

Prioritize making AI tools accessible and affordable for SMEs.
SME adoption is highlighted as key to widespread societal acceptance.

Delivery Approach

Begin with pilot projects in each sector to showcase value and build expertise.
Scale successful initiatives to wider applications and regions.
Integrate solutions across sectors and continuously optimize for maximum impact using sector-specific KPIs.

Want to contribute to a sector program?

Explore engagement pathways for innovators, researchers, industry, diaspora, students and citizens.

Get Involved See Flagship Initiatives