City twinning arrangements have been viewed by quite a number of scholars as a way to
go in the 21st Century in fostering diplomacy of the states. as such the study sought to
unearth the role that city twinning arrangements played in fostering Zimbabwe’s
diplomacy through a critical study of the twinning arrangements entered between City of
Harare and City of Munich. The study at hand was critical in that at state bilateral level
Zimbabwe and Germany were not in cordial terms at least from an international relations
point of view. By virtue of German being a strategic and critical member of the European
Union, she was obliged to honour the economic sanctions and a whole sale package of
restrictive measures the 28-memeber bloc had slapped on Zimbabwe with the turning of
the new millennium, on allegations of Zimbabwe’s blatant abuse of human rights
especially at the height of its land reform programme of the post millennium. Confronted
with a research problem on how the levels of demonisation and denigration at state level
between Zimbabwe and any other European Union member state such as German could
fair diplomatic manoeuvres, the researcher sought to assess the extent at which the
Harare-Munich twinning arrangement managed to navigate and thaw the hostile relations
that prevailed at the same time. Through the qualitative research approach, the researcher
used documentary search and guided questionnaire research methodology to assess the
extent at which twinning arrangements could foster diplomacy between Zimbabwe and
German. Using a theoretical framework anchored on interdependency theory and the
concept of soft power, it was realised that indeed city twinning could help in fostering
diplomatic relations. Whereas states have remained and retained the sole legitimate role
of being the primary actors of international relations, t was recommended that cities could
still play a pivotal role in fostering diplomacy through complementing and not necessarily
supplementing states in their diplomatic endeavours. As such the researcher highly
recommended the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to strongly incorporate the Ministry of
Local Government in harnessing diplomacy through riding on the crest of twinning
arrangements entered by cities