Meet Dr. Auxillia Mnangagwa, the First Lady of Zimbabwe, who has been a driving force behind a series of innovative initiatives aimed at promoting Zimbabwe’s rich cultural heritage and driving economic growth. Through her tireless efforts, she has successfully launched and scaled up programs that celebrate traditional cuisine, preserve national customs, and empower local communities. Let’s take a closer look at her remarkable journey and achievements in promoting gastronomy tourism and community development in Zimbabwe and Africa at large.
In 2019, Dr. Auxillia Mnangagwa introduced the Gastronomy Tourism concept, focusing on cookout competitions at district, provincial, and national levels. These traditional cookout competitions aimed to promote and preserve the country’s cultural heritage, particularly its traditional cuisine. The competitions encouraged people to share and celebrate their diverse culinary traditions, fostering a sense of national pride and unity.
In 2021, she pioneered the Nhanga Gota/Ixiba programme, recognizing the need to preserve the nation’s customs and traditions. This initiative is key in bringing out national identity and ethics, helping to address issues such as drug and substance abuse, as well as child marriages.
By 2023, the programme was elevated to the SADC Regional Gastronomy competitions. This inaugural event, held in Masvingo Province at the Great Zimbabwe monuments, saw participation from seven SADC countries: Zimbabwe, Botswana, Angola, DRC, Namibia, Mozambique, and Malawi, as well as Nigeria. The regional event attracted the international community, leading to an invitation extended to the First Lady by UN Tourism to participate in the UN Tourism Global Forum on Gastronomy held in Spain in 2023. She was also invited to the UK to showcase Zimbabwean cuisine during the World Travel Market in November 2023.
In her remarkable journey, the First Lady launched the Farm Market Programme in May 2024, a concept focused on moving along the value chains for economic empowerment and growth of the nation. Gastronomy Tourism, through this initiative, aims to uplift community livelihoods and open income doors for mothers and youths to be part of the market value chain.
Yesterday, the inaugural United Nations Regional Forum on Gastronomy Tourism, which she played host to, was officially opened by His Excellency, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, at the Elephant Hills Hotel in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, with 10,000 people in attendance.
Her journey has been driven by a passion to improve the livelihoods of families and communities, aligning with Zimbabwe’s national vision of becoming a prosperous and empowered upper-middle-income society by 2030.
