Zimbabwe – Umguza RDC advocating for 50/50 representation in service delivery.

Umguza RDC has created a strong link with Gender Links and other NGO’s within it that aim to push the agenda of women empowerment and gender mainstreaming in Council. Since 2014 after the inception workshop that was attended by Council senior officials and Council chairpersons of committee, Umguza RDC has not looked back in terms of gearing for 50/50 representation.

In the 2014, Council concentrated on the youth as Council felt they were the future. Council in its bid to ensure representation, started with empowering the boys and girls at school through career guidance which was the theme then.

In year 2015 Council advocated for women empowerment through 50/50 representation in politics by creating an empowered woman Councillor who is geared for the 2018 election from use of media to campaign to proper etiquette.

All the three projects aimed at ensuring capacitation of women from three different spheres of influence starting from schools, in politics and at home setting. All these females had the opportunity to get knowledge that has the potential to change their lives. The capacitation was not just to empower women but also to lobby for men to be pioneers and advocates of women empowerment. The Council felt that leaving them out of the Campaigns will create a ‘them’ and ‘us’ situation instead of an all-inclusive collaborated campaigns that sees men noticing the gap that is currently in existence.

Of the direct beneficiaries, 74% participants have been reached by this project. The project has fostered partnerships with various NGOs like Emthonjeni women’s forum, Trinity, HOCIC, Plan International and World Vision who are also members of the gender committee of council.

The Government of Zimbabwe has allocated $20000 to this project. In kind contributions amounted to $5000. The total budget for the project is $25000.

Some of the challenges faced include attitude change, basically from men who have been exposed to a patriarchal society. However the worst to address were the women who were also patriarch in their thinking and actions and would not empower another women if given the chance. Given such there seems to be a great need for continued advocacy and education for women.

There has been an increase in knowledge gap through the last 50/50 campaign that Council Held at David Livingstone in Ntabazinduna. From inquiries from the registry department, more women have now gone to seek their services and addressed the issue of having children without national identification documents and birth certification.

Male Councillors have been seen to be proactive in organizing these functions for 50/50 representation. Women are now able to raise issue towards development. Patriarchal system is slowly becoming abolished.

Some lessons learnt are that women articulate their issues better hence there is need for them to represent themselves on issues that affect them. Also, it was noted that if men are excluded from the 50/50 campaigns, they will work against women empowerment because they are not empowered to capacitate.

This good practice should be replicated to all wards and villages in the district for continuity to exist and to ensure continuity even when Council is not involved. Local council should be in a position to come up with their own initiatives that ensure empowerment of women so that there is equality in services delivery and access to services. This will in turn help to change people’s attitudes.