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HIGHLIGHTS
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In 2025, an estimated 7.6 million people, including 3.5 million children, will require urgent humanitarian assistance in Zimbabwe due to the El Niño-induced drought, a food and nutrition crisis, floods and public health emergencies.
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UNICEF plans to reach 1.6 million people – including 1.3 million children, 155,739 persons with disabilities and 188,617 people living with HIV – with integrated life-saving services spanning health, nutrition, water and sanitation, child protection, education and social protection.
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UNICEF will increase technical and financial support to government-led national and subnational coordination structures to deliver multisectoral life-saving services and mainstream social and behaviour change, accountability to affected populations, gender equality and protection from sexual exploitation and abuse across its interventions.
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UNICEF requires $36.5 million to meet humanitarian needs in 38 high-priority districts in Zimbabwe in 2025. Critical interventions will address the needs of children and families in the areas of health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), education, child protection and social protection, while integrating the HIV response, risk communication and community engagement and the response to gender-based violence.
HUMANITARIAN SITUATION AND NEEDS
Zimbabwe faces a complex humanitarian crisis, driven by the climate-related El Niño drought, economic instability and public health emergencies that include outbreaks of cholera, polio and mpox. The country is facing one of the worst droughts in 40 years. Drought is affecting an estimated 50 per cent of the population (7.6 million people), including 3.5 million children. Out of these 7.6 million people, 9.5 per cent have disabilities, 5.9 million are in rural areas and 1.7 million are in urban areas. The most severe impacts of the drought will be felt during the peak hunger period of January to March 2025 because the drought is projected to worsen in early 2025, impacting 38 districts, including (but not limited to) Beitbridge, Buhera, Chimanimani, Chipinge, Harare, Hwange, Kariba and Tsholotsho.
In rural areas, child wasting prevalence increased from 4.1 per cent in 2023 to 4.9 per cent in 2024; in urban areas, child wasting prevalence increased from 3 per cent in 2023 to 5.6 per cent in 2024, indicating a deteriorating nutrition situation. Additionally, only 6.1 per cent of children (aged 4–19 years) are receiving hot meals at school nationwide; 50.3 per cent of urban households have limited access to sanitation services; and 3.3 per cent of households still practise open defecation. The El Niño-induced drought has had compounding consequences on food security, nutrition, health, water sanitation and hygiene (WASH), education, social protection, shelter, agriculture, energy and infrastructure and has impacted such cross-cutting concerns as gender equality and child rights.
The worsening impacts of the drought in the first quarter of 2025 are expected to lead to increased moderate and life-threatening severe wasting among children, along with disease outbreaks. Food insecurity will also deepen poverty, vulnerability and the risk of school dropout, gender-based violence and exploitation of children. Water scarcity has caused a spike in diarrhoeal and other water-related diseases: common diarrhoea cases increased from 29,445 in July 2024 to 43,661 cases in August (48 per cent increase), with 55 per cent of the August cases reported in children under age 5. Needs are high for safe water sources, with 6,028 (11 per cent) of water points countrywide broken down and 2,310 (4 per cent) of identified water sources dried up, primarily in Masvingo, Matabeleland South and Midlands provinces, 11 which are among the provinces most affected by El Niño. As the drought intensifies, its cumulative effects will overwhelm households’ coping mechanisms in the first quarter of 2025, leading to a peak in the severity of water insecurity and the deteriorating nutrition status of children.