Lutheran Development Services (LDS) is the humanitarian and development arm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe (ELCZ). It was born out of the localization of the Lutheran World Federation, Department for World Service (LWF DWS) Zimbabwe Program and registered as a Private Voluntary Organization in 2003.

Grounded in the principles of Christian faith, LDS seeks to bring hope,empowerment, and transformation to marginalized and vulnerable communities across Zimbabwe. As a member of the ACT Alliance, we associate with like-minded partners to advance sustainable development, disaster response, and advocacy for justice and peace.

LDS envisions a society where all people experience dignity, justice, and fullness of life. We work across several critical areas, including food security, climate resilience, disaster risk reduction, gender equity, health, livelihood empowerment and humanitarian. Our programs strive to integrate justice, peace, and humility in all aspects of development work. This work additionally promotes social justice, climate justice, migration and displacement, gender justice as well as sexual and reproductive health rights as a human rights issue.

LDS’ work is influenced by the UN’s agenda 2030 for Sustainable
Development and is also aligned to the Zimbabwe Government’s National Development Strategy (NDS1) which is the country’s ambition to achieve vision 2030 of a ‘prosperous and empowered upper middle-income society by 2030’.