Private Voluntary Organisations (Board and General) Regulations, 2026

These regulations set out how the Private Voluntary Organisations Board is appointed and how organisations register with it. Registration fees are US$250,00 for an international private voluntary organisation and US$150,00 for a local one, with local fees payable at the prevailing bank rate.

The most useful provision for an applicant is a deadline that runs against the Registrar. Provisional approval or rejection must be communicated within ninety days of a complete application — and if the Registrar fails to communicate within that window, the organisation is deemed to have been provisionally registered. The ninety days only start once every required document is in.

Beyond that, the Registrar puts applications to the Board, which either issues a certificate of registration or rejects the application on the grounds that the organisation is not genuinely operating towards its stated objects, or that its constitution or management does not comply with the Act. The applicant must be told the outcome and the reasons within one month of the Board sitting. Where rejection is for non-compliance, the organisation gets thirty days to fix it, extendable once by up to twenty-one days on good cause. Fix it in time and the Registrar must register within fourteen days.

Changes must be reported. A change of name or of registered objects goes on Form PVO 6, and any material change must be lodged within one month of it happening. A material change in beneficial ownership or control is treated as if it were a fresh application for approval.

On the Board itself: the Minister must advertise for nominations in a newspaper and on the Ministry website, and nominations come from PVOs and their associations on prescribed forms within twenty-one days. Members serve three years, renewable once only. Someone is disqualified if they are not a citizen or ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe, are an undischarged insolvent, or were sentenced to imprisonment without the option of a fine in the last five years. Members of Parliament are barred, as is anyone already sitting on two or more other statutory bodies. There is also a disqualification where a person is married to someone whose business activity the Minister thinks would compromise their impartiality.

The Board meets at least quarterly, needs seven members for a quorum, holds an annual general meeting, and may keep meeting without a quorum for ninety days — but decisions taken in that state lapse unless ratified once a quorum returns.

Organisations granted temporary authority to collect contributions face specific conditions: money must be used for the purpose the authority was granted and disposed of within sixty days of the authority expiring, all funds must go into a bank account disclosed to the Registrar, and receipts, books of account and donation lists are open to inspection at any time and must separate out what was spent on administration and on paying people connected with the organisation.

The regulations include a repeals section, but its content was not in the retrieved text, so which earlier regulations fall away is not stated here.