Summit 2018 – Karoi Town Council
Date: July 11, 2018
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Karoi is situated in the Mashonaland West area of Zimbabwe. Known for its vast agricultural activity.
Karoi Town Council has had a draft Gender Policy that is being finalized and awaiting adoption. The council has 10 councillors and only 1 is a woman. Karoi Town Council has 5 committees, and only 1 is chaired by women. The council Mayor and Deputy Mayor are both males. 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.
The town of Karoi is gives an opportunity for people with disability to participate in council activities. They participate mostly in ward meetings, budget consultation, budget review, water and sanitation, junior council and gender meetings. Between 26 and 50 percent, women participate at public consultations and meetings. Karoi has a total workforce of 312, of whom 105 are women. In terms of decision making at managerial level there is only 1 woman out of the 6 managers.
Zimbabwe by law prescribes for 3 months paid maternity leave thus Karoi provisions for it. However, there is no paternity leave. The council has asexual harassment policy where all complaints of a sexual harassment nature are lodged with the Town Secretary and investigations are done. To date the council has experienced 1 case of sexual harassment. The council does not have provision for access to people with disability, an area they are looking to improve on.
Karoi Town Council allocates a substantial budget to gender-related projects, between 2016 and 2017 as below:
| Category | Budget 2016 | Budget 2017 |
| Resources allocated to gender policy process and action planning | $1 500 | $3 000 |
| Resources allocated to promoting gender equality in decision-making and public participation | $2 000 | $1 500 |
| Resources allocated to promoting gender equality/family friendly/ youth and disability friendly policies and practices | $500 | $500 |
| Resources allocated to gender-responsive local economic development | $5 000 | $5 000 |
| Resources allocated to promoting gender/youth/PWD responsive projects on climate change |
$100 000 |
$26 000 |
| Resources allocated to promoting gender/ youth and disability friendly infrastructure and social development policies and practices | $41 050 | $41 050 |
| Resources allocated to promoting gender/ youth and disability friendly SRHR, HIV and AIDS programmes | $5 000 | $5 000 |
| Resources allocated to ending gender violence | $200 | $200 |
| Resources allocated to visibility for the Council’s Gender Action Plan | $1 000 | $1 000 |
| Resources allocated to Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning for the Council’s Gender Action Plan |
$500 |
$500 |
Karoi Town Council has no climate change policy but council is supporting projects that reduce pollution, prevent
climatic change and reduce the amount of discarded waste material through recycling and reuse. Women and youths are involved in these projects and are earning a living out of the projects. Among the projects are the Chenai FBO biogas production which utilises biodegradable waste from the municipal dumpsite to produce biogas, and Chima CBO a group that is carrying out scrap metal collection project to reduce land pollution and earn a living from selling the metals.
Click here to read more about Karoi Town Council.
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