What started as an investment in water, food security and livelihoods has grown into a community success story—and now, national recognition.
In Nyanga North, the landscape tells a different story from the lush mountains for which Nyanga is widely known. Away from the high, mist-covered Eastern Highlands, the northern part of the district is characterised by a warmer, drier landscape where rainfall can be unreliable and prolonged dry spells put pressure on rain-fed farming. For families who depend on agriculture, a failed rainy season can quickly become a food and income crisis.
Nyamahumba, in Ward 6 of Nyanga North, is one such community where smallholder farming remains central to livelihoods. Here, the realities of a changing climate make access to reliable water and more resilient farming methods particularly important.

Yet, across this dry landscape, Nyamahumba Village Business Unit (VBU) is demonstrating how investment in rural communities can turn challenges around water, food security and livelihoods into opportunities for sustainable development. A variety of cash crops grow under drip irrigation, fishponds are stocked, livestock is being reared and a solar-powered borehole provides water for both farming and households.
The two-hectare site is busy with farmers working the land and managing different enterprises. More importantly, the produce is generating income for households.
That progress has now taken Nyamahumba to the national stage.
Nyamahumba VBU was named Best Village Business Unit at the 116th Zimbabwe Agricultural Show in Harare. The award was presented by His Excellency President Dr Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa and comes with a 65HP tractor, a shield and various farming inputs.
For the farmers, it is recognition of their hard work. For the United Nations Development Programme, the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Water Resources Development and other partners, it is a tangible example of how investing in rural resilience can help communities turn vulnerability into opportunity.

It started with water

For years, water was one of Nyamahumba’s biggest challenges. Women and girls walked long distances to collect water, while small boreholes often dried up. For farmers, unreliable water meant unreliable production.
“We would lack water even for basic drinking, and the small boreholes we had would dry up,” says Erika Churu, a youth farmer from the community.
Chipo Faith Nyakumera, Vice-Chairperson of Tagarika B Garden, remembers the burden of collecting water from a 5km distance. “We would walk long distances carrying heavy buckets, and sometimes the wells would dry up,” she says.
The investment in the VBU was designed to change these hardships.
Through the United Nations Development Programme’s Community Recovery and Resilience Facility (CRRF), working together with the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanization and Water Resource Development, UNDP has supported the community with infrastructure and interventions aimed at strengthening livelihoods and resilience to climate and economic shocks.
At Nyamahumba, the support includes a solar-powered borehole, 40,000-litre water storage tanks, a two-hectare drip-irrigated community garden, fishponds and a poultry project.
The result is more than water, it is a productive asset that allows farmers to grow crops beyond the limitations of rainfall, diversify their livelihoods and generate income.
And the difference is being felt in homes.
“That heavy labour is gone,” says Nyakumera. “Farming is no longer painful or stressful. We can pay school fees for our children directly from our garden profits.”
For local leaders, the VBU is also creating new opportunities for young people.
“In the past, people were struggling,” says Mr Didmus Nyamahumba, the local councillor. “Most of the time you would find people wandering around idle because they had nothing to do.”
Today, the VBU gives young people an opportunity to participate in farming, develop practical skills and earn from productive work.

Building resilience that lasts

Nyamahumba is part of a broader effort under the CRRF, through which UNDP and partners are supporting vulnerable rural communities to strengthen their ability to withstand and recover from shocks.
The investment has brought together water, agriculture and livelihood diversification in one community-led model. The aim is not simply to produce food for today, but to help farmers build enterprises that can continue generating food and income in the face of future challenges.
This work is anchored in partnership—with Government of Zimbabwe providing the national framework, UNDP supporting resilience investments, and communities driving and sustaining the work on the ground.