Drought drives rising hunger
“We were only able to harvest two buckets of sorghum. That wasn’t enough. We tried to make sure we eat in the morning and evening whatever we could find after getting work in the nearby fields,” explains Alice, a farmer. It is only enough to survive. She and her husband can no longer afford to pay school fees for their three children.
Hardly anything grows in their garden that could supplement their meagre income, because water is scarce and the soil is parched. In recent months, all ten of the family’s chickens have died. Alice and her husband are facing ruin. They work on other people’s fields while their own lie fallow. The harvests are too uncertain, the rain too unreliable.
When the rains fail
Thousands of farmers in Zimbabwe are in the same situation as Alice. Rising temperatures and unpredictable rainfall have fundamentally changed the climate: droughts now occur every two to three years instead of once a decade. As a result, 2.7 million people in rural areas are repeatedly threatened by hunger.
The precarious food situation hits the youngest particularly hard: according to the United Nations World Food Programme, almost a quarter of children under the age of five are malnourished. In the cities, too, many suffer from scarce supplies and rising prices: 28 percent of the urban population is affected by food insecurity.
Women particularly affected
In Zimbabwe, women continue to be underrepresented in the formal labour market and at the same time do significantly more unpaid work – whether in care, household chores, or production. They are more likely to be affected by poverty and feel the consequences of the climate crisis more acutely than men. It is also often harder for women to access support.
Violence against women and girls is another issue that Zimbabwean civil society seeks to counter.
For Alice, support from local organizations, including Nutrition Action Zimbabwe (NAZ) and Padare, is currently essential for survival. She and her family have received food vouchers for 750 ml of oil, 10 kg of corn flour, and 1.5 kg of beans per person — enough to get them through the most difficult months.
She hopes to be able to harvest again next season and that there will be enough rain to water her gardens so that her family can once again live off their own crops.
CARE in Zimbabwe
CARE has been active in Zimbabwe since 1992. Its work focuses on empowering women and girls, reducing inequality and poverty, and promoting food security, resilience, and rapid emergency response.
In response to drought, CARE works to improve water infrastructure and access to water. In Zimbabwe, CARE works with local partners such as Nutrition Action Zimbabwe (NAZ).
Together with NAZ, CARE supported around 24,800 people in drought-affected regions with food vouchers – including Alice and her family.
Additional humanitarian context is available via the IFRC drought response overview and the WFP Zimbabwe Country Brief (September 2025).
Unreported crises
The CARE Crisis Report is published annually and highlights the ten crises that receive the least media attention. In 2025 Zimbabwe ranked as the ninth least reported crisis in the world.