Zimbabwe Diaspora Skills Database

Back to Atlas

A national online platform launched in December 2025 mapping the skills of Zimbabweans abroad to connect them with institutions and development priorities at home.
What are the main aims and objectives?

The Zimbabwe Diaspora Skills Database aims to convert Zimbabwe's significant brain drain into a "brain gain" by systematically capturing the professional skills, expertise and global experience of Zimbabweans living abroad and making this talent available to domestic institutions, government ministries and private sector organisations through structured virtual and in-person engagement, with the goal of strengthening Zimbabwe's human capital base in support of the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1), NDS2 and the Education 5.0 framework through skills transfer, mentoring, advisory roles, research partnerships, innovation collaboration and structured return opportunities, while reducing the ad hoc nature of diaspora engagement that has historically limited its development impact.

How does the program work?

The Diaspora Skills Database is an online registration and matching platform hosted at zimskills.gov.zw/skillshub/public, managed directly by Zimbabwe's Ministry of Skills Audit and Development.

Registration. Zimbabweans living abroad register on the platform by providing structured information about their professional background, sector expertise, academic qualifications, skills and their preferred forms of engagement — for example, whether they are available for virtual mentoring sessions, short-term assignments, research collaborations, advisory roles or physical return visits. Participation is open to Zimbabweans across all sectors, including healthcare, engineering, education, finance, agriculture and technology.

Verification. The Ministry of Skills Audit and Development reviews and verifies registrations before profiles are made active in the database. This verification process is designed to ensure that the database contains credible, accurate professional information that institutions can rely on when making decisions about engaging diaspora talent. Ministry officials described this quality control step as central to building institutional confidence in the platform.

Matching and deployment. Government ministries, public institutions, universities, hospitals and private sector organisations can query the database to identify diaspora professionals whose expertise matches specific organisational needs. This could be a training requirement, a research gap, an advisory vacancy or a short-term technical assistance need. Institutions then initiate contact with registered diaspora professionals through the platform.

Engagement modes. The platform is designed to support both remote and in-person engagement. Virtual participation — through webinars, online mentoring, remote consultancy — is a core feature, acknowledging that most diaspora professionals cannot permanently relocate but can contribute meaningfully without leaving their host countries.

Complementary instrument. The Diaspora Skills Database was launched alongside a parallel Retired Experts Skills Database, which captures the expertise of retired Zimbabwean professionals based domestically who are willing to contribute through mentorship, consultancy and short-term assignments. The two databases are designed to work as a complementary pair, addressing both international and domestic pools of underutilised expertise for NDS1 and NDS2 priorities.

What is the overall cost?

No information is publicly available on the budget, development costs, operating expenditure or funding sources for the Zimbabwe Diaspora Skills Database.

How was it implemented?

The Zimbabwe Diaspora Skills Database was conceived within the Ministry of Skills Audit and Development as part of Zimbabwe's broader effort to operationalise NDS1 and NDS2 through human capital development and diaspora engagement. The Education 5.0 framework — which emphasises innovation, industrialisation and community development as outcomes of higher education — provided the policy context linking skills development to national growth priorities.

The platform was developed and is hosted by the Ministry, with registration accessible at zimskills.gov.zw/skillshub/public. Ministry staff are responsible for verifying registrations and maintaining the database, with matching facilitated through the platform's search and contact functions.

The database was officially launched on 30 December 2025 by Minister of Skills Audit and Development Professor Paul Mavima at a public event in Zimbabwe. The launch was reported by NewZimbabwe.com, Zimbabwe Situation and state media, and Minister Mavima personally announced the launch on his official social media accounts.

The Retired Experts Skills Database was launched simultaneously, reflecting a deliberate design decision to address both diaspora and domestic pools of expertise through a single coordinated announcement, thereby framing the initiative as a comprehensive national human capital strategy rather than a standalone diaspora programme.

What impact has been measured?

The Zimbabwe Diaspora Skills Database was launched at the end of December 2025 and is too recent for quantitative impact data to have been generated or published. No metrics on registrations, verified profiles, institutional queries, matches made, skills transfer sessions completed or other activity indicators have been reported by the Ministry or in media coverage

CURATED BY

Tom Hancock

Research Associate
Global Entrepreneurship Network
United Kingdom