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Key findings
Zimbabwe is highly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change. The Global Climate Risk Index ranks it 34th on a list of 174 countries most affected by extreme weather events between 1995 and 2024 (Germanwatch, 2025). And the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (2026) places Zimbabwe 171st out of 187 countries, combining high vulnerability to climate change with low readiness to deal with climate-change impacts.
The country’s major challenges include reduced and erratic rainfall (Government of Zimbabwe & UNDP, 2017). Whereas droughts occurred in one in 10 growing seasons between 1902 and 1979, their frequency increased to one in four between 1980 and 2011. Climate change has also been associated with increases in average temperatures, numerous mid season dry spells, and a shortening of the rainy season since 1960 (World Bank, 2024).
In 2024, President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared a state of national disaster in response to the impact of an El Niño-induced drought (Guardian, 2024). This followed a declaration of a state of national disaster in 2019 after Cyclone Idai ravaged the eastern part of Zimbabwe, particularly the Chimanimani and Chipinge districts of Manicaland, leaving 31 dead and more than 100 missing (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2019). In January it was reported that heavy rains during the summer had already left 70 people dead and 51 injured, and destroyed at least 1,000 houses (Shamu, 2026).
The government’s response to climate change is anchored in the National Climate Change Adaptation Plan (2024-2030). The document serves as a roadmap toward a climate-resilient, low-carbon economy, which it seeks to achieve by mobilising climate finance and fostering
climate-change-adaptation research, innovation, and technology development and transfer. The plan lays out how the government will plan, implement, monitor, and evaluate climate-adaptation initiatives, as well as how these will be integrated into sectoral development programmes. Other strategic priorities include strengthening institutional capacity for climate-change management, enhancing climate-information systems, and improving disaster preparedness (Government of Zimbabwe, 2024).
In September 2025, Zimbabwe gazetted the Climate Change Management Bill, a legal framework designed to bolster the country’s response to climate change. If passed by Parliament and signed into law by the president, the legislation will establish a national climate fund that will draw on taxes and proceeds from the trading of carbon credits to fund adaptation, mitigation, and capacity building. Among other things, the bill provides for the obligations of sub-national governments, establishes units to monitor and regulate environmental and meteorological outcomes, and allows for “green” financial incentives (Chishuvo, 2025).
This dispatch reports on a special survey module in the Afrobarometer Round 10 questionnaire that explores Zimbabweans’ experiences and perceptions of climate change and changing weather patterns.
Findings show that overwhelming majorities of citizens report worsening drought and crop failure over the past decade. More than one-third report having adapted to changing weather patterns by adjusting water consumption, reducing or rescheduling outdoor work, modifying the crops they plant or foods they eat, and, among those who have livestock, altering livestock management.
A slim majority of citizens have heard of climate change. Among them, more than nine in 10 say it is making life worse, and two-thirds say human activity is to blame for the changing climate, either on its own or in conjunction with natural processes. Majorities say that the Zimbabwean government must take urgent action to limit climate change and that rich countries should help fund the country’s response.
Among all citizens, majorities support a range of potential policy responses to changing weather conditions, including greater pressure on developed countries to provide climate aid, investment in climate-resilient infrastructure and renewable technologies, use of cleaner burning cookstoves, and a ban on cutting trees for firewood or charcoal.
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