By Brenna Matendere
The National AIDS Council (NAC) has held a validation meeting in Harare for the Zimbabwe National HIV and AIDS Strategic Plan (ZNASP V) 2026–2030.
The meeting focuses on sustainability, addressing funding gaps caused by shrinking international support, and shifting toward increased domestic resource mobilization to maintain HIV gains, with a target of US$200 million annually.
The meeting aimed to validate the new strategic plan (2026-2030) that follows the successful ZNASP IV (2021–2025).
With international donor funding dwindling, the new strategy prioritizes mobilizing domestic funds to plug financial gaps, aiming for at least US$200 million annually.
While ZNASP IV achieved the 95-95-95 targets for adults, gaps remained in children, adolescents, and men, and Mother-to-Child Transmission (MTCT) remained above the elimination threshold.
The new plan, ZNASP V, emphasizes strengthening the national response amidst economic shocks, climate change, and dwindling external funding.
The meeting was attended by stakeholders to ensure the new strategy serves as a guiding policy document for civil society and the government.
In an interview, NAC Chief Executive Bernad Madzima noted that the validation workshop also focused on safeguarding the gains already achieved through sustainable financing.
“So as we move from 2026 to 2030, as we develop our Zimbabwe National AIDS Strategic Plan, these are the areas which we are looking at, how to sustain the gains of the HIV programme, noting that we have already achieved the 95-95-95 targets. So we need to find ways to sustain that momentum.
“And one of the areas which we are looking at is resource mobilisation at the domestic level. We know the funding gaps which have been created by these stopgap measures, and we are looking at mobilising not less than US$200 million per year to ensure that we have adequate supplies of ARVs, laboratory commodities, condoms, sexual and reproductive health commodities. So this is the gap,” he said.
Dr Madzima said the National AIDS Trust Fund needs to be strengthened through additional revenue streams.
“And as National AIDS Council, our main source of funding really is the AIDS levy, the National AIDS Trust Fund, and it needs to be topped up. And we are looking at, together with the Ministry of Health and Child Care, issues around national health insurance. We are also looking at issues of the sin taxes, the health levy, which is being collected on various commodities like sugar, alcohol and cigarettes,” he said.
“But we are also engaging parliamentarians to ensure that health in general can access other forms of taxation. If we are going to fund health, whether through national health insurance or through increasing the AIDS levy, the main issue is to focus on local, domestic resources. That is the strategy we are going to employ.”
The AIDS levy was extended to the mining sector in 2015 and has been widely hailed as a unique, innovative and sustainable model for domestic health financing in Africa.
Amid reduced donor funding and increased calls for domestic resource mobilisation, Zimbabwe’s AIDS levy generated about US$60 million in 2025.
The Zimbabwe National AIDS Levy is a statutory 3 percent tax on individual income through PAYE and on corporate profits. Established in 1999, it funds the National AIDS Trust Fund.
The levy is collected by ZIMRA and administered by the National AIDS Council, serving as a sustainable “homegrown” domestic resource.
More than 50 percent of the fund is used to procure antiretroviral drugs, with the remainder supporting HIV prevention programmes.
“In 2025, the AIDS levy amounted to around US$60 million. And US$60 million cannot fill a gap of US$200 million. So there is still that funding gap of US$140 million,” Dr Madzima said.
He added that additional financing was urgently needed to close the US$140 million shortfall.
“In light of the funding cuts which have happened, and since the beginning of 2025, the HIV programme in particular, and the other programmes in general, they have had severe knockbacks because of these sudden funding cuts,” he said.
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