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Mukudzei Chingwere-Herald Reporter

The three-day Government Experience Exchange Programme Workshop between Zimbabwe and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which ended on Saturday, will assist in the realisation of targets set under Vision 2030, Deputy Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Mr Willard Manungo has said.

He was speaking at a dinner hosted for the visiting UAE delegation by the Government in Harare recently.

Zimbabwe had its Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Permanent Secretaries across Government attending the workshop to learn from the UAE model. 

With the workshop the two sisterly nations are hoping, going forward, to tap from each other’s governance structures, and to reinvigorate Zimbabwe’s journey as well as offer a dashboard view of the international best practices.

On its part Zimbabwe which is on a trajectory to attain an empowered upper middle income society is hoping to tap from the UAE example which has seen the Arab nation grow into a first world country with one of the most resilient and sustainable economies in the world.

Mr Manungo said the exchange was of paramount importance especially at a time Government systems had been configured towards the attainment of an upper-middle income economy much earlier than the previously projected 2030 to 2028.

He commended the journey that the UAE has travelled in their quest to develop their country and said it is a model we ought to learn from to achieve the quest of an empowered upper-middle-income society.

“The programme that we are having is between the Government of Zimbabwe and the Government of the United Arab Emirates. If you look at trade statistics, the UAE is now a major player,” said Mr Manungo.

“If you look at the experience of the UAE, their development was anchored on oil but they have since diversified and are embracing technology, innovation and they are diversifying into new areas that are driven by technology.

“ICT is a major contributor in terms of the development thrust of the UAE and then over and above that they have related all their governance systems at the national level to complement the drive to diversify their investment base based on technology.

“As Zimbabwe, we have got our Vision 2030 and if you look at the experience of the UAE, they have their own vision and development strategies which they are implementing.

“UAE offers Zimbabwe opportunities to benchmark the achievements that we want to realise drawing from their best practices.

“The challenge that we have as people of Zimbabwe, whether in Government, private sector, civil society or labour, the challenge that we have is to learn from the best practices.

“So, it is necessary that as the office of the President and Cabinet, as the Government of Zimbabwe, as the private sector of Zimbabwe, as the labour of Zimbabwe, as the civil society of Zimbabwe we need to raise our bar, our bar towards the realisation of the aspirations of Vision 2030,” said Mr Manungo.