By Jonathan Mbiriyamveka
BULAWAYO – Zimbabwe has unveiled a landmark National Artificial Intelligence Strategy that explicitly places young girls at the center of the country’s digital industrialization agenda, ICT Minister Tatenda Mavetera announced Friday.
Speaking at the belated International Girls in ICT Day commemoration at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Minister Mavetera declared that the strategy—running from 2026 to 2030—is not merely a policy document but a binding roadmap to ensure that the Fourth Industrial Revolution does not reproduce existing gender inequalities.
“The critical question is: who is writing that code? Who is building those systems?” Mavetera asked the audience of young students, mentors, and development partners.
“Our answer as Zimbabwe must be unequivocal: our girls must be at the centre of that transformation.”
The National AI Strategy outlines a vision where artificial intelligence is deployed across key economic sectors, including agriculture through smart farming, healthcare via predictive diagnostics, mining through automation, and government through smart public service delivery.
However, the Minister stressed that these advancements will fail if women and girls are excluded from their creation.
Citing President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s vision of an upper-middle-income society driven by innovation, Mavetera warned that “the digital revolution must not become another space where inequality is reproduced. It must instead become the greatest equaliser of our generation.”
To achieve this, the government is rolling out practical interventions including the 1.5 Million Coders Programme, the Digital Skills Ambassadors Programme, and the CyberUS Cybersecurity Training Programme.
The Minister specifically encouraged young girls to enroll, noting that cybersecurity and machine learning are no longer optional skills but strategic national necessities.
“What does this mean for the girl child in Zimbabwe?” Mavetera asked. “It means opportunities for careers in machine learning, software engineering, data science, robotics, AI ethics, digital entrepreneurship, animation, cloud computing and cybersecurity.
It means the ability for a young girl in Zimbabwe to build a digital business from her laptop and compete globally.”
The strategy also mandates that AI systems developed in Zimbabwe must be “human-centric, transparent, and free from bias,” acknowledging the risk that algorithms could inherit existing prejudices if women are absent from development teams.
UN Resident Coordinator Mr. Edward Kallon was quoted in the Minister’s address as reinforcing that “AI’s potential will only be realized if we invest in skills—ensuring no one and no place is left behind.”
With connectivity, cloud computing, and investments in the High Performance Computing Centre already underway, Minister Mavetera concluded that the infrastructure is being laid.
“Innovation is no longer confined to Silicon Valley or foreign capitals,” she said. “Innovation can emerge from Bulawayo, Gweru, Mutare, Masvingo, Lupane or Murehwa.”
The event was organized in partnership with POTRAZ, the She Tech Initiative, and various development partners.
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