Summit 2016 – Chikomba Rural District Council COE

Chikomba is a district of Zimbabwe. It is a major farming hub with a lot of commercial farms. It is a transit point between Harare and Johannesburg.

Chikomba RDC greatly values mainstreaming of gender in all its programmes. The council has a Gender policy and action plan in place and is also conscious and appreciative of the Gender work being done by other stakeholders such as Ministry of Women Affairs and Gender, NGOs and Ministry of Small to Medium Enterprise. The council has 30 councillors and only one of them is a female.

There are eight committees within the council, and none of those are chaired by women. The council has more girls than boys and the Junior Council is a female.

Women and PWD actively participate in WASH activities such as clean up campaigns, HIV/AIDS prevention and mitigation campaigns as well as actively participating in council residents meetings in their respective wards. Between 51 and 75 percent women participate in the public consultations.

Out of 11 women employed, only one of them is part of the council’s management. There are also three other women who are in the accounts department, middle management level and one is a secretariat. Affirmative action favouring engagement of women is being made through an internship programme involving 3 young women from local universities.

The council has provision for three months maternity leave. There is a policy against sexual harassment. Sexual harassment cases are treated seriously as gross misconducts. For example, a middle manager indecently assaulted a female junior employee by fondling her breasts and was made to face a hearing in which he was demoted and given a final warning. At workplace, the code clearly stipulate that it is a gross offences deemed to be sexual harassment.

The council has allocated a budget from 2015 and 2016 to support gender-related projects.

As part of the economic development plan, the council has allocated market stalls to both men and women. Women were given 32 and men were given 25 Small to Medium market stall to start-up businesses to gain income.