Zimbabwe youth and women empowerment project (YWEP)

The Government of Zimbabwe (GoZ), intends to economically empower youth and women, particularly in rural areas, by setting up food (honey, horticulture and mopane worms) value addition facilities in three districts; and an artisanal gold ore milling facility in one district. The food processing facilities shall be set up in existing vocational training centers; and the artisanal gold ore milling facility shall be set up in a designated business zone in the district. The processing facilities involve the rehabilitation or extension of existing buildings to house the facilities. The facilities targeted for rehabilitations/extensions/constructions are of small scale and the total estimated cost of the works is USD 400,000. The target population to benefit directly from the project will mainly be youth and women with emphasis on the rural poor. The Project targets the women and youth in 5 of the 59 districts of the country. The targeted districts are Beitbridge (mopane worms) Mutasa and Lupane (honey), Guruve (artisanal gold ore milling); Mutasa and Marondera (horticulture); and The population of the targeted districts, totalling 650,000 (50.7% female) is expected to benefit indirectly from the project. A total of 5,000 youth and women located in the project geographic scope will benefit from additional off-farm jobs to be created in the subsectors of food processing, and processing of gold ore. 200 MSMEs in the targeted food value chains are expected to be reached with business development services, appropriate technology and facilitating their access to credits and markets. The value addition activities in horticulture processing is also expected to benefit the thousands of women and youth involved in the growing of horticulture products and who currently suffer significant post-harvest losses and low prices which are driven by lack of processing facilities within their districts and poor access to markets. In addition, a significant proportion of the 150,000 women artisanal gold miners in the country who work in the targeted districts where the gold ore processing centres will be set up, will benefit from increased incomes from their ore – at present, due to the prevailing power relations, large-scale miners capture most of the benefits when they process the ore of artisanal women miners, leaving them with just a small fraction of the gains. The overall development objective of the project is to contribute towards to the improvement of livelihoods for youth and women through the development of economic opportunities. It entails the rehabilitation/extension/construction of food processing and artisanal gold ore milling units in a total of 5 rural districts in Zimbabwe. All these activities will result in improved incomes, job creation for women and youth and overall economic empowerment of the target groups.

Project symbol

ZWE/16/01/BAD

Admin unit

CO-Harare

Start date

06/03/2017

End date

25/07/2022

Total allocation

3271813

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

3240628

Development Partners

African Development Bank

Country/Countries

Zimbabwe

Outcomes

Outcome 4: Sustainable enterprises as generators of employment and promoters of innovation and decent work