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Policy Brief: Aligning China’s 15th Five-Year Plan with Zimbabwe’s Vision 2030 – A Think-Tank Agenda for Action: From Dialogue to Implementation

The year 2025 marks a defining moment in the enduring relationship between China and Zimbabwe, as the two nations celebrated 45 years of diplomatic ties and elevated their partnership to new strategic heights. The visit of His Excellency President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa to China in September 2024 and September 2025 reaffirmed this deepening bond, culminating in a series of high-level engagements that strengthened the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Cooperation and underscored the shared commitment to build an all-weather community with a shared future. Against this backdrop, the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Zimbabwe and the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) co-hosted the China–Zimbabwe Dialogue: Aligning China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) with Zimbabwe’s Vision 2030 on 20 November 2025. The Dialogue was part of the broader implementation framework emerging from President Mnangagwa’s visit and the outcomes of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. It sought to identify actionable synergies between Zimbabwe’s forthcoming National Development Strategy 2 (NDS2) and China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, both of which emphasise sustainable, innovation-led, and people-centred development. This event was not only a think-tank initiative but a multi-stakeholder platform bringing together senior government officials, parliamentarians, diplomats, academics, business leaders, and the media. It reflected the growing consensus across both countries that sustained cooperation, grounded in shared priorities and mutual respect, is essential to achieving Zimbabwe’s Vision 2030 and China’s development goals under its new five-year plan. DOWNLOAD PDF

China Zimbabwe Dialogue Report

The Embassy of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Zimbabwe, in conjunction with the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) held a half-day seminar on 20 November 2025 with the objective of bringing together stakeholders to discuss and explore how the two countries can align their development plans. The theme of this seminar under the CHINA-ZIMBABWE DIALOGUE was “Aligning China’s 15th Five Year Plan with Zimbabwe Vision 2030”. The seminar was a platform for dialogue, mutual learning, and the identification of synergies between national development plans and strategies such as the National Development Strategy 2026-2030 (NDS 2) for achieving Vision 2030. The dialogue follows the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (20-23 October 2025), and the 22nd National People’s Conference of the ZANU-PF Party (13-18 October 2025), and was attended by a wide range of stakeholders including parliamentarians, trade unions, think tanks, academics and the media, as well as the Government of Zimbabwe, the ZANU-PF Party, and the PRC Embassy in Zimbabwe. DOWNLOAD PDF

How will the Beijing Action Plan set off wave of modernisation in Africa?

by Munetsi Madakufamba From the just concluded 2024 Summit of the Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing, I share my insights, from a southern African perspective, on issues of possible relevance to the policymaker in preparation for the implementation of the FOCAC-Beijing Action Plan (2025-27). This is the third in a series of articles on FOCAC 2024. ———————————— The highly anticipated Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) ended with a declaration and a three-year action plan for “jointly building an all-weather community with a shared future” backed by substantial financial support, underscoring Beijing’s overarching vision for the continent.

FOCAC 2024 presents opportunities for expanding China-Africa cooperation

by Munetsi Madakufamba As Beijing prepares to host the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), I reflect on issues of possible interest to the Chinese investor with focus on Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular. I discuss how Zimbabwe and the continent of Africa can leverage on opportunities presented by the dual planks of FOCAC and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Zimbabwe is a country with enormous potential that has been suppressed by over 20 years of Western sanctions but is now rising as a strategic player in the 16-member Southern African Development Community (SADC). Zimbabwe has just become the chair of SADC for the next year. President E.D. Mnangagwa is on a state visit to China and will attend the FOCAC Summit in early September with other African leaders.

FOCAC 2024 more than just diplomacy: Africa’s modernisation top on the agenda

by Munetsi Madakufamba As Beijing hosts the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), I continue to share my insights, from a southern African perspective, on the great diplomacy and intellectual project of our time. In this second in a series of articles on FOCAC 2024, I look at the significance of the China Africa cooperation framework, what it has achieved, and how Africa can leverage synergies for its development agenda.

The Role of Regional Economic Communities as building blocks for the sustainable implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area

By Munetsi Madakufamba, Executive Director, Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC), presented at the Beijing Forum: Africa Development and China-Africa Cooperation, 2-4 December 2023, Peking University, Beijing, China DOWNLOAD PDF

Rethinking Post Harvest Management Interventions in Southern Africa in the Era of COVID 19

Paper By Munetsi Madakufamba (Executive Director, Southern African Research and Documentation Centre [SARDC1]) and Neto Nengomasha (Senior Researcher, SARDC) Presented at the Virtual Conference hosted by Nanjing Agricultural University, 21 03 2021 Post-harvest losses among smallholder farmers in the Southern African region have been a major concern with losses as high as 40 percent of harvested crops. This has increased pressure on food security with rapidly expanding population, poor infrastructure to move crops to the market and price volatility.