Zvimba Rural District Council a revolutionary force in gender emancipation

Zvimba RDC became a centre of excellence in 2011 fully aware of the gender imbalances that existed at council. The major challenge was that there was no gender specific budget to carry out gender activities. There was also no gender policy or work plan. Gender aggregate data was the order of the day. Today council now being a revolutionary force in gender emancipation, has an operational gender work plan, gender specific budget, and a gender policy adopted by council in December 2012. The other major success of Zvimba RDC was the policy on governance. Before becoming a COE, council was male dominated in the councillor platform as well as key management. Both the chairperson and vice chairperson of council were male and in senior management there was no female manager. Two years down the line, council has a policy that if the chairperson of council or committee is male then the vice should female and vice versa. IN this new council, the chairperson of council is male and the vice is female. We have 4 female chairpersons and 3 female vice chairpersons which were unheard of prior to council becoming a COE. Council has now one HOD female and another female HOD is waiting for ministerial approval. We also have one section head who is female. We also have Stands allocations which consider the sex of applicant. There has been a marked increase in borehole drilling and clinic construction which is now easing the burden of female residents of zvimba who used to walk long distance in search of water. 5 boreholes were drilled in Banket, 2 in Murombedzi, 2 in Raffingora and 2 in Nyabira all being townships. This was to augment the water being provided by Zimbabwe Water Authority .We have introduced refuse collection for Murombedzi and Nyabira. Zvimba increased its rural health centres from 18 to 21 and two more which are almost complete in construction. We used to have 126 primary schools 4 more additional schools have been authorised and are under construction.

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