Partners of a new resilience building initiative in Zimbabwe held a launch meeting in Harare on 7 October 2022, gathering 80 participants, including national agricultural extension programmes, government representatives, academic institutions, government representatives, private sector actors, the media, EU representatives and national agricultural research and development organisations.

Entitled "Resilience Building through Agroecological Intensification in Zimbabwe (RAIZ)," the initiative aims to support climate-smart agriculture and livelihoods in three districts in Zimbabwe. These include Murehwa, Mutoko and Mudzi in Mashonaland East province. The project aims to help thousands of smallholder farmers intensify, diversify and de-risk maize-mixed farming through improved extension services, institutional capacity building, targeted farm management bundles, policy support, enterprise development and private investment.

The launch brought together partners and other main stakeholders to get to know each other, understand the project better (including gender and social inclusion, capacity strengthening and learning).