Overview:

• Recognition and registration are amalgamated rather than ideally differentiated; a focus is placed on the latter as legal registration with few to no means for existential recognition; legal registration does not entail tax-exemption as that status must be applied for separately through ZIMRA with separate registration requirements.

• A similar system of umbrella organisations or mother bodies exists in Zimbabwe as in Zambia but with much less diversity in comparison.

• The ongoing political instability in the country somewhat undermines the gains made in the field of religious freedom.

• Whether religious groups conducting humanitarian or NGO-style activities must follow the same registration procedures as NGOs remains unclear.

Positive elements:

• Freedom of religion or belief is generally upheld but not broadly upheld by the government in practice; this is typically based, however, on the stipulation that members of religious groups do not express political views controversial to the government.

• Horizontal recognition is in effect.

Recommendations:

• Establish a reorganised recognition system that has the capacity to provide both existential recognition and legal registration.

• The umbrella body structure can remain as long as it is no longer used as a means of restriction and therefore only on the stipulation that it is expanded to include all belief systems to ensure that more diversity is allowed in the country.