Zambia and Zimbabwe commit $440m to revive the Batoka Gorge hydro scheme

Zambia and Zimbabwe have each committed $220 million in public equity — $440 million combined — to the Batoka Gorge Hydro-Electric Scheme, marking the first time either government has put its own capital behind the 2,400MW project on the Zambezi River after five decades of studies and false starts. The Zambezi River Authority's council of ministers, comprising two ministers from each country, approved the contributions at its 43rd meeting in December 2025.

The run-of-river scheme, estimated to cost $4.2 billion in total, would sit on the Zambezi between the existing Kariba Dam and Victoria Falls, split evenly to supply 1,200MW to each country. Its run-of-river design avoids a large new storage reservoir, reducing the scheme's environmental and resettlement footprint compared with conventional dam projects, and the design draws on more than a century of Zambezi flow data managed by the Zambezi River Authority.

From studies to procurement

Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema and Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa directed accelerated implementation of the project following a Bi-National Commission meeting, and a resource-mobilisation committee led by both countries' finance ministers has been tasked with raising the remaining $3.76 billion needed. Financial, technical and legal advisers have already been appointed, and the two governments held a market-sounding session with prospective investors and contractors at the Africa Energy Forum in Cape Town in June 2026, ahead of a planned formal procurement process.

A long-delayed answer to Kariba's limits

Batoka Gorge is designed to work alongside Kariba and, eventually, further proposed schemes at Devil's Gorge and Mupata Gorge, as part of a cascading hydropower system on the Zambezi intended to give both countries more diversified and resilient generation than relying on a single reservoir. For copperbelt and Zimbabwean mines that have suffered through repeated Kariba-linked power crises, a functioning Batoka Gorge would add badly needed baseload capacity — but with formal procurement still ahead and the bulk of financing still to be raised, first power remains years away even if the current momentum holds.

Sources

• CSR Reporters: After 50 Years, Can $440 Million Finally Make the Batoka Gorge Work, 09 Sept 2026
• SolarQuarter: Zambia and Zimbabwe Advance Batoka Gorge Hydro-Electric Scheme to Boost Climate-Resilient Power and Regional Energy Security, 10 Feb 2026

Photo: The Zambezi River gorges near Victoria Falls, downstream of the proposed Batoka Gorge hydropower site. lumoplank, Wikimedia Commons, CC0.