2018 Summit – Gweru City Council

The City of Gweru, affectionately known as the City of Progress, is situated at the heart of Zimbabwe with a road and rail network that links it with all other major towns in the country. More so this also links it with the neighbouring countries of Botswana, South Africa, Zambia and Mozambique.

The City of Gweru council has a draft Gender Policy that is being finalized and awaiting adoption. The council has 18 councillors (16 male councillors and 2 female). Gweru City Council has 5 committees, and only 1 is chaired by women. The council Mayor and Deputy Mayor are both male. Council has a junior council through which young people participate and air their concerns. The junior council is composed of more girls than boys and the mayor is female.

City of Gweru is an inclusive organisation in that all people’s views including the disabled and the youth are taken on board. Through the junior Council program the youths’ views are taken on board. The disabled are also consulted and involved in decision making mostly during budget consultation and vendors meetings. Between 51 and 76 percent, women participate at these consultations and meetings.

Gweru has a total workforce of 1146, of whom 360 are women. Youths account for 287 of the workforce and 15 disabled persons. In terms of decision making at managerial level women account for only 2 of the 16 managers. The Town Clerk, Roads Engineer, Computer manageress, Assistant Director of Housing, Senior Auditor and Senior Accountant are some of the women employed in non-traditional jobs in council.

Zimbabwe by law prescribes for 3 months paid maternity leave thus Gweru provisions for it. However, there is no paternity leave. The council has no sexual harassment policy thus sexual harassment cases are addressed through the Labour Act (28:01) that prohibits sexual harassment at the workplace and it states that it is considered as one of the “unfair labour practices” and an employer can be held liable for indiscipline of a sexual harassment nature. The council has ensured Disability-friendly access through constructing ramps on all roads in the Central Business District and all its facilities to ensure ease of access for people with disability.

Gweru City Council allocates a substantial budget to gender-related projects, these amounts have in most cases remained constant between 2016 to 2017.

Gweru City Council has employed 120 care-givers of whom 45 are men. The care givers have managed to mobilize the community to access health services like HIV testing and Cancer screening. This has resulted in increase in awareness, behaviour change and increase in number of people on Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ART).

Click here to read more about Gweru City Council.