A national strategy is a high-level, state-led planning instrument that sets out long-term priorities and coordinates action across sectors to achieve defined development goals.
Unlike standalone policy statements, a strategy serves as an integrative framework, aligning political intent with administrative execution by setting out objectives, guiding principles, institutional arrangements, and implementation pathways.
The Zimbabwe National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2026–2030 exemplifies this form.
It is an ambitious framework that positions AI as a driver of inclusive growth and national sovereignty, drawing on Unesco’s AI Readiness Assessment Methodology and shaped by national consultations.
The strategy sets out eight guiding principles, including human-centric and ethical AI, transparency, inclusivity, and non-discrimination.
However, a national strategy has no direct legal force. Its authority is political and administrative, not binding.
Proposals within the strategy, including ethical frameworks, truth-verification mechanisms, and data governance structures, remain normative unless underpinned by clear legal backing and effective enforcement through gazetted legislation.
The strategy is organised around three interrelated objectives:
- Time running out for SA-based Zimbos
- Sally Mugabe renal unit disappears
- Epworth eyes town status
- Commodity price boom buoys GB
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- Embedding AI across key productive sectors (agriculture, healthcare, mining, public administration, and finance);
- Establishing Zimbabwe as a sovereign AI actor capable of controlling its own data and systems;
- Grounding AI development in Ubuntu principles and the Heritage-Based Education 5.0 model to align technology with social values and national priorities.
To guide this vision, the strategy articulates eight principles:
- Human-centric and ethical AI;
- Transparency and data sovereignty;
- Safety and data security;
- Inclusivity and non-discrimination;
- Availability and accessibility;
- Collaboration and cooperation;
- Innovation and co-creation;
- A local-first, developmental-centric approach.
Collectively, these principles seek to balance technological advancement with social considerations while anchoring AI development within national and cultural contexts.
For the three rights central to MISA Zimbabwe’s mandate, namely freedom of expression, privacy, and access to information, this governance gap is not a technical detail.
It is the central problem.
Without enforceable legal safeguards, the strategy’s commitments risk remaining aspirational, while its high-risk provisions (centralised data platforms, AI surveillance infrastructure, and truth-verification systems) may be implemented without the judicial oversight and rights-based constraints that legislation alone can provide.
This analysis examines three high-risk areas in which the strategy’s design, together with Zimbabwe’s existing legal and institutional context, poses identifiable threats to digital rights.
- Freedom of expression
The Zimbabwe National AI Strategy addresses the right to free expression primarily through its emphasis on transparency, public engagement, and ethical AI development.
It introduces mechanisms such as the Nzwisiso.ai campaign and public-facing dashboards to improve public understanding of AI systems and foster trust.
These measures are presented as enabling conditions for an open and informed digital environment in which citizens can engage with emerging technologies and their societal implications.
2.1 The national reality check platform
The strategy proposes the establishment of an AI-powered National Reality Check Platform for truth-verification in media and government communications.
The initiative is framed as a mechanism to address misinformation.
The introduction of a centralised platform for determining or verifying “truth” raises immediate concerns about freedom of expression.
The strategy does not specify which institution will manage or supervise the platform, nor does it set out criteria, processes, or safeguards for its operation.
This institutional silence creates ambiguity around who exercises authority over information verification and how that authority is constrained.
An AI-supported truth-verification system has the potential to influence which information is amplified, flagged, deprioritised, or suppressed.
Without independent oversight and transparent criteria, such a platform could evolve from a tool for combating misinformation into a mechanism for shaping public discourse.
The distinction between verification and control blurs when the same system can monitor content, classify narratives, and influence visibility at scale.
This concern is heightened by Zimbabwe’s existing legal environment. Section 164C of the Cyber and Data Protection Act criminalises “false data messages” and has been used directly against journalists who exercise constitutionally protected speech.
The Cybersecurity and Monitoring Centre operates under the Office of the President and has no judicial oversight.
A centralised truth-verification platform layered on this existing architecture creates an enabling environment for algorithmic content moderation without due process.
2.2 The national interest as an open-ended mandate
The strategy repeatedly emphasises concepts such as national sovereignty and national interest as guiding principles for AI governance.
These terms are not defined within the strategy, nor are they explicitly tied to enforceable rights-based safeguards.
In Zimbabwe’s regulatory context, similar language has historically been used to justify interventions that affect freedom of expression.
When embedded within an AI governance framework, these open-ended concepts serve as flexible mandates that can be interpreted expansively, particularly in areas involving digital communication and information flows.
AI significantly expands the state’s technical capacity to monitor, analyse, and influence information at scale.
In the absence of clearly defined limits, invoking the national interest may justify deploying AI systems beyond narrowly defined regulatory objectives.
The concern is not that the strategy explicitly mandates censorship, but that it creates an enabling environment in which algorithmic mediation of expression becomes both technically feasible and politically justifiable, all without clear legal constraints.
2.3 The chilling effect
Beyond direct content moderation, the strategy’s surveillance-enabling provisions (discussed below under privacy) have a secondary effect on expression.
Where digital activity is subject to continuous monitoring, individuals may alter their behaviour because they perceive they are being observed. When AI systems analyse communication patterns or flag content as potentially risky, this chilling effect is amplified.
Journalists, human rights defenders, and ordinary citizens may self-censor not because of any explicit prohibition, but because the technical architecture of the AI state renders visibility and risk unpredictable. — Misa Zimbabwe
