Antony Chawagarira
MASVINGO — The Parliament of Zimbabwe is pushing for stronger investment in traditional medicine research and the development of herbal gardens as Zimbabwe moves to preserve indigenous knowledge while unlocking economic opportunities from medicinal plants.
The Parliamentary Thematic Committee on Culture and Heritage, led by its chairperson, Senator Chief Nechombo, made the call during a recent oversight visit to Great Zimbabwe University (GZU).
The committee visited the Simon Mazorodze School of Medical and Health Sciences and the university’s herbal nurseries to assess research into traditional medicine and proposals for a national herbal-gardens programme.
Chief Nechombo said the initiative was anchored on the Constitution, which requires the preservation of Zimbabwe’s heritage and promotion of indigenous knowledge systems.
“Section 16 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe requires the state and citizens to preserve and protect our heritage,” he said.
“Section 33 requires the state to preserve, protect, and promote indigenous knowledge systems.”
He said Zimbabwe needed to ensure that indigenous medicinal knowledge was properly documented, researched, and protected, while also creating opportunities for innovation, employment, and sustainable commercialisation.
“Our indigenous knowledge must not simply remain a memory of the past. It must be protected as our heritage, researched responsibly, developed through innovation, and harnessed to improve the well-being and livelihoods of our people,” Chief Nechombo said.
In remarks delivered on his behalf by Pro Vice Chancellor Professor Marian Tukuta, GZU Vice Chancellor Professor Rungano Zvobgo said traditional medicine was central to the university’s heritage-based approach to teaching, research, community service, innovation, and industrialisation.
He said the Simon Mazorodze School of Medical and Health Sciences was positioning the university to advance the discovery and development of medicines from natural sources.
“A medicinal plant that grows in a rural homestead is not merely a shrub. It is a pharmaceutical raw material, a source of rural income, an export product, and a national medicine—but only if we build the value chain that carries it from the garden to the clinic,” Professor Zvobgo said.
The proposed model involves cultivating and propagating medicinal plants, and training rural communities in good agricultural practices, quality assurance, research, processing, and manufacturing.
Professor Zvobgo said the university also intended to establish a school of pharmacy to strengthen drug discovery and development from natural resources.
He appealed for Parliamentary support towards herbal gardens, community training, manufacturing infrastructure, and the proposed pharmacy school.
Executive Dean of the Simon Mazorodze School of Medical and Health Sciences Professor Jacob Mufunda said efforts to integrate traditional and conventional medicine in Zimbabwe dated back to the 1980s.
He cited the contributions of former Health Minister Dr. Herbert Ushewokunze and Professor Gordon Chavhunduka, including the establishment of the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association (ZINATHA).
“What we are talking about is enhancement of that trajectory,” Professor Mufunda said.
He said GZU was also responding to calls from the World Health Organisation for medical schools to explore the integration of traditional and herbal medicine into conventional medical education.
About 20 percent of the university’s medical curriculum is devoted to traditional and herbal medicine, he said.
The programme is intended to produce doctors capable of understanding both conventional and traditional approaches to healthcare.
Meanwhile, Professor Mazuru Bartholomew Gundidza said GZU’s research was drawing on medicinal knowledge held by rural communities, women, and traditional practitioners.
He said researchers were working with communities to improve harvesting and cultivation practices while developing standards for the sustainable use of indigenous medicinal plants.
Professor Gundidza said Zimbabwe had significant potential to benefit from indigenous plants such as moringa, baobab, and marula, whose oils and other products have international markets.
He warned that the country risked losing control of its biological resources if it continued exporting raw materials without developing local processing and manufacturing capacity.
Professor Gundidza called for rural industrialisation, with processing plants established closer to communities where medicinal plants are cultivated and harvested.
Such an approach, he said, would create employment, retain more value within rural communities, and encourage the conservation of indigenous plant resources.
GZU has set aside five hectares for the expansion of its herbal nursery as it seeks to increase medicinal-plant production and strengthen partnerships with rural communities.
The Parliamentary visit ended with discussions on policy, investment, and institutional support needed to establish a sustainable herbal-medicine value chain linking communities, researchers, manufacturers, and the healthcare system.
