Zimbabwe Tables Circular Economy Fund Proposal at COMESA Level

Zimbabwe has formally proposed the creation of a circular economy fund under the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), according to a report by Zimbabwe's state-owned Herald newspaper.

That single line is the whole confirmed story so far — and the framing matters more than the detail. A member state is asking a 21-country trade bloc to put pooled money behind circularity, which would shift recycling and secondary-materials projects from donor-programme territory into regional infrastructure finance.

What is actually on the table?

The proposal, as reported by the Herald, is for a dedicated COMESA circular economy fund. Zimbabwe is the sponsoring government. The report does not yet specify:

• a target capitalisation or initial pledge size
• the financing instrument — grants, concessional loans, guarantees or blended finance
• which material streams (scrap metals, plastics, e-waste, organics) the fund would prioritise
• a governance structure or which COMESA body would administer it

Until those numbers land, this is an announced initiative, not built capacity. Practitioners should treat it the way you'd treat any pre-feasibility project: real political signal, no bankable pipeline yet.

Why a regional fund, and why now?

For operators in the region, the logic is fairly straightforward. Recycling economics in most COMESA states run up against the same wall: collection volumes too small at national scale to justify sorting and processing infrastructure, and commodity price exposure that kills margins when export prices dip. A pooled fund sized at bloc level could, in principle, underwrite the aggregation infrastructure — material recovery facilities, transfer stations, regional reprocessing capacity — that no single national budget will fund on its own.

Zimbabwe itself has been moving in this direction domestically, with Harare pushing waste-to-resource initiatives and extended producer responsibility discussions in recent policy cycles. Taking the idea to COMESA signals the government sees the financing gap as regional, not national.

What would it change for the sector?

If the fund materialises with meaningful capital, the near-term effect would be felt in project preparation, not plants. Regional development funds typically move first through feasibility studies, policy harmonisation and de-risking instruments before a single tonne of additional throughput is processed.

For companies and investors watching the region, the items to track are concrete:

• whether the proposal reaches the COMESA Council of Ministers or summit agenda, and when
• any figure attached to an initial capitalisation
• which member states co-sponsor — a single-country proposal usually stalls; three or more tends to survive
• whether African Development Bank, Afreximbank or COMESA's own trade facilitation instruments are named as co-financiers

The milestone that decides what happens next

Watch for the proposal's placement on the next COMESA policy organs agenda. If it clears the Council of Ministers with a capitalisation figure attached, the fund becomes a deadline-bearing commitment. Until then, it's a proposal with a sponsor — and in regional bloc politics, that distinction is everything.