**Abstract**

The realities of climate change in Africa have led to a growing need for innovative approaches to livelihoods programming that promote resilience among rural communities for sustainable community development. Although several community resilience frameworks are emerging there is a need for practice modalities. This paper proposes a programming framework grounded in soft systems thinking that brings an understanding of the multi-dimensional and integrated nature of resilience programming. The author utilizes experiential knowledge from over a decade of rural development facilitation in Zimbabwe coupled with secondary reviews to address two key research questions: What are the critical components of a systemic programming framework for community resilience? And, how is such a framework facilitated in practice? The paper concludes by giving critical components of the systemic programming framework and recommends that the framework should be tested empirically for its components to be integrated into resilience programming in Zimbabwe.

**Keywords:** systemic programming framework, soft systems methodology, resilience, climate change, sustainable community development, Zimbabwe
