What happened
With the Government of Zimbabwe, UNDP runs a Green Climate Fund project to build the climate resilience of farm livelihoods in southern Zimbabwe. In June 2026, UNDP's Independent Evaluation Office published its evaluation of UNDP's country program from 2022 to July 2025, based on documents and interviews with 228 stakeholders. The office found that UNDP combined artificial intelligence, drone technology and machine-learning models to monitor crop health at the Midlo, Pikinini/Jawanda and Bindamombe irrigation schemes. It found that this enabled earlier and more precise responses to threats of crop loss. The office names no product or developer and gives no figure, date or source for this finding. It lists field visits in Chimanimani, Chipinge and Mutare and none to the three schemes. In an interim evaluation of the project dated 6 September 2024, two evaluators found that none of its irrigation schemes were ready for production at the time of their survey. They named Bindamombe, Midlo and Pikinini-Jawanda among the schemes whose civil works were complete but which had not started crop production. They do not mention drones or artificial intelligence.
Sources
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Evaluation report, by authors with no tie to the system.
UNDP Independent Evaluation Office. Independent Country Programme Evaluation: Zimbabwe. June 2026, Chapter 2 (Findings), Outcome 2, p. 32. The report is an independent publication of the office.
UNDP combined artificial intelligence (AI), drone technology and machine-learning models for crop health monitoring at irrigation schemes in Midlo, Pikinini/Jawanda and Bindamombe, enabling earlier and more precise responses to crop loss threats.
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Evaluation report, by an evaluator that the makers or users commissioned. Context or contrary evidence.
At the time of the survey, none of the irrigation schemes were ready for production, partly due to delays in co-financing.
Details
AI system
- Workflow
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UNDP combined artificial intelligence, drone technology and machine-learning models for crop health monitoring. The monitoring ran at the Midlo, Pikinini/Jawanda and Bindamombe irrigation schemes under the project funded by the Green Climate Fund.
Follow-up
- Conditions for replication
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The schemes must be producing crops, which in 2024 awaited government co-financing for land preparation and input starter packs. Communities must maintain the irrigation infrastructure, since gaps in maintenance planning and ownership undermined resilience investments.
Entry details
- Sector
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Agriculture / crop protection.
- Purpose
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Developers whom the evaluation does not name built the monitoring to check crop health at irrigation schemes with drones and machine-learning models.
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Cite this record
Peter H. Vartanian. (2026). Drones and AI watch crop health at three Zimbabwean irrigation schemes (AIBD-0922). Artificial Intelligence Benefits Database, edition of 1 November 2026. https://petervartanian.xyz/aibd/records/AIBD-0922.html (archived at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/AADSII, version 7.0)