FHI 360

FHI 360, originally founded in 1971 as Family Health International, is a global nonprofit organisation headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, that mobilises research, resources and relationships so that people everywhere can access the opportunities they need to lead full, healthy lives. Registered in the United States as a 501(c)(3) public charity, FHI 360 now operates in more than 60 countries, employing a multidisciplinary, evidence-based approach across health, education, economic development, and humanitarian response.

FHI 360's presence in Zimbabwe stretches back to 1985, and since 2015 the organisation has led a significant expansion of its country programme, focused on three interlocking priorities: HIV care and treatment, food security, and maternal, newborn and child health. FHI 360's approach is distinctive in that it does not simply deliver aid directly, it works as a technical partner alongside Zimbabwean organisations, strengthening their systems, capacity and quality of care so that local institutions become stronger and more self-sufficient through every project cycle, not just recipients of a service that ends when funding does.

Zimbabwe continues to carry one of the more significant HIV burdens in Southern Africa, a region that has borne the brunt of the global epidemic for four decades. Even as antiretroviral treatment has become more widely available, ensuring that people living with HIV actually know their status, start treatment promptly, and stay engaged in care over the long term remains a persistent challenge, particularly among adolescent girls and young women, who continue to face disproportionately high rates of new infection.

Alongside the HIV epidemic, Zimbabwe's rural provinces face recurring food insecurity driven by erratic rainfall and economic pressure, undermining household stability and, in turn, health outcomes for entire families. Maternal, newborn and child health services in provinces like Manicaland have historically been constrained by limited access to emergency obstetric care, weak community health systems, and deeply rooted cultural and religious dynamics that shape whether families seek formal medical care during pregnancy and childbirth at all. The COVID-19 pandemic further strained an already stretched health system, leaving intensive care units and frontline health providers under significant pressure just as demand for critical care equipment and training spiked.

FHI 360 has spent more than 50 years developing solutions to global health and development challenges, beginning its worldwide response to HIV/AIDS in 1986 and expanding since into family planning, tropical and infectious disease control, maternal and newborn health, education, and economic opportunity. The organisation now operates in more than 60 countries and all U.S. states and territories, employing roughly 2,200 people worldwide, work that in Zimbabwe specifically traces back to 1985, giving the organisation four decades of continuous, on-the-ground experience navigating the country's particular health and development landscape.

FHI 360's work in Zimbabwe has been carried out with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) across multiple projects, and in direct partnership with Zimbabwean implementing organisations including Africaid and Zimbabwe Health Interventions (ZHI), as well as with CARE International on food security programming in Manicaland and Masvingo. Globally, FHI 360's funders and partners include the FHI Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Johnson & Johnson Foundation, the Pfizer Foundation, the Walmart Foundation, the LEGO Foundation, the GHR Foundation, and PATH, among many other foundation, government and nonprofit partners supporting its work across the more than 60 countries in which it operates.

Every contribution channelled through Fonseca to FHI 360's Zimbabwe programme helps sustain four decades of continuous, trusted work supporting the country's response to HIV, strengthening maternal and newborn survival in provinces like Manicaland, and building household food security in Masvingo and beyond. This is not short-term, one-off assistance, it is technical partnership designed to leave Zimbabwean institutions and communities stronger and more capable long after any individual project ends. Supporting FHI 360 means investing in an organisation with the scientific rigor, local partnerships and sheer staying power to keep meeting Zimbabwe's most pressing health and development challenges, one evidence-based programme at a time.