A delegation led by Omaheke Governor Pijoo Nganate is in Zimbabwe on a benchmarking mission.

The delegation, among others, is hoping to gain some insight into how that country is dealing with unemployment through innovative technologies.

The delegation comprises the regional leadership and the farming community. 

Zimbabwe is one of the countries that has adopted and is innovating new technologies in order to increase productivity and create jobs.

The country was ranked 113th in the Global Innovation Index last year, and the Omaheke Governor believes the region can benchmark, especially in an era when youth unemployment is at an all-time high.

"Everyone wants to work in government. University graduates are unemployed. They are looking for government work, but they cannot employ themselves. We then said we needed to do something. We established what we called the innovation and incubation village. We deliberately didn't want to call it a hub because it would look very sophisticated, and very modern, and it would discriminate against rural people. Because our aim is to uplift the rural people, we aim to bring employment to the rural areas to make sure that people in rural areas don't need to come to urban areas."

The governor was impressed by creative ideas at the University of Zimbabwe's Innovation Hub.

Professor Florence Mtambanengwe, Executive Director of Research and Innovation at the University of Zimbabwe, emphasises the importance of research as a tool and path to industrialisation.

"Higher education institutions are now establishing new industries. New companies also take part in the commercialisation of goods and services, but the beauty of the commercialisation of goods from universities is that they are knowledge-based, which means their quality products will equally participate in the industrialisation space