Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga is expected to leave the country this weekend for Baku, the commercial hub of Azerbaijan to attend a United Nation premier global conference on sustainable urbanisation.
The global indaba, the 13th session of the United Urban Forum (WUF13) will be held from May 17 to 22.
It would be held under the theme: Housing the world: Safe and resilient cities and communities.
The conference will bring together governments, cities and civil society, private sector and other stakeholders to chat away forward in addressing a global housing crisis.
The conference will also find ways to strengthen housing as a catalyst to inclusive and sustainable development.
Zimbabwe, like other countries the world over, is grappling with a serious housing crisis in all major cities, with Harare alone having 300,000 applicants on its housing waiting list.
The City of Harare has been struggling to allocate land due to severe shortages and a backlog dating back decades.
The shortages have fueled allegations of corruption involving State land.
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This has also seen the mushrooming of land barons, most with links to the ruling Zanu PF party, who have gone to invade wetlands.
Chiwenga will also attend the 11th Digitalisation of Industrial Russia (CIPR) conference that runs from May 18 to 21 in Nizhny Novgorod at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair.
The conference, one of Russia’s top five largest business events uniting governments and information technology (IT) industry leaders, will focus on digital sovereignty and global technology cooperation.
Over 30 countries participated in last year’s edition of IT extravaganza.
Zimbabwe’s multibillion-dollar IT industry is growing rapidly, driven by major advancements in cloud computing, AI, and hardware manufacturing.
However, economic factors are hampering the realisation of its full potential.
Chiwenga has been calling for inclusive industrial growth underpinned by technology.
