Zimbabwe tops the list of winners at gender summit

Harare 16 June: The ministers of gender and local government today celebrated Zimbabwe’s success at the SADC Gender Protocol@Work Summit in Johannesburg last month, as they geared up for Zimbabwe taking over leadership of the regional body in August.

With five winners and three runner ups, Zimbabwe walked away with the highest number of prizes at the prestigious annual event that brought together over 400 gender activists, media, government and faith-based organisations from 15 Southern African countries.

Organised by Gender Links and the Southern African Gender Protocol Alliance represented in Zimbabwe by the Women’s Coalition, the summit provided a platform for sharing good practices and acknowledged the work of gender drivers of change À“ see https://www.genderlinks.org.za/page/gender-summit.

Fifteen winners from the national summit held in Harare in from 14-17 April 2014 fought a tight race in several categories including government, local government, the media and various theme categories like women’s rights to emerge the country with the most number of awards in 2014.

“This is a proud moment for Zimbabwe,À said Minister of Local Government Ignatius Chombo, whose ministry won a prize for its efforts at gender mainstreaming. “We are especially pleased at the strong showing of local government among all the winners.À

“The awards help us to focus our minds on the post 2015 agenda, as Zimbabwe takes over the leadership of SADC in August this year in the critical count-down to 2015,À added Minister of Women, Gender and Community Development Oppah Muchinguri. “Zimbabwe will play a critical role in charting the way forward for the gender agenda in the region, in line with the global post 2015 development agenda.À

Adopted in South Africa in 2008, the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development has 28 targets to be achieved by 2015 À“ also the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals, including MDG 3 À“ gender equality.

Held under the banner “5050 by 2015 and a strong post 2015 agendaÀ the regional summit provided a watershed moment to plan for the year ahead, with ten elections in various Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. The civil society Southern African Gender Protocol Alliance will present the outcomes of the sessions at the SADC Heads of State Summit to be held in August in Zimbabwe. Gender Links in partnership with the Women’s Coalition on Zimbabwe, the Alliance Network, will launch the SADC Barometer 2014. Data collection started in 2013 and the research is continuing as we drive towards this momentous event.

Members of the Alliance stressed specific areas of concern such as women’s empowerment and the crucial link between economic independence in helping curb gender based violence (GBV); greater access to sexual and reproductive health rights; disability and gender. A parallel meeting was held with 6 countries (Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe) that have undertaken the GBV Indicators research. Zimbabwe has already started using the research findings as baseline data. There is need to  move forward with the costing of the GBV  national strategy as well as find ways in which research findings can be cascaded to the local level with a view to reducing the prevalence of GBV.

The 5050 plenary session highlighted the need women’s quotas at all levels, particularly political and economic decision-making. With women’s representation in politics declining following recent elections in some SADC countries such as South Africa, delegates concluded that deliberate measures need to be legislated and implemented. In Zimbabwe the last election held in July 2013 saw an increase in the number of women in the National Assembly owing to the legislative quota which allowed for 60 reserved seats.

However, a decline was seen in Zimbabwe’s Local government sector with the number of female councillors declining from 18.8% to 16.2%.   As such there is need for Government, particularly the Ministries of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development (MWAGCD) and Local Government, Public Works and National Housing (MLGPWNH) as well as civil society to use section 17 of the Constitution to come up with measures to increase the proportion of women at Local level.

Gender Links intends to cascade the Centres of Excellence (COE) programme from the current 27 to 60 by 2016. GL will conduct the training in partnership with the MWAGCD and MLGPWNH to ensure that these targets are met. The 3 Councils (Harare City council, Bulawayo City council and Zvimba RDC) that proceeded to the regional summit emerged as winners. This shows that councils in Zimbabwe have started implementing their gender action plans with the ultimate goal of providing gender sensitive service delivery. Indeed, a verification exercise held in 2014 showed that councils have specifically earmarked $189,000 for the implementation of their gender action plans.

The MLGPWNH has given its full support to the programme as evidenced by circulars being issued to councils to develop gender action plans and hold key functionaries accountable for their implementation.   The Ministry also emerged as a winner at both the national and regional summits under the new category of government departments. This     achievement shows that the Ministry is also mainstreaming gender at the national level.

For more information contact:   Priscila Maposa on zimlocalgvt@genderlinks.org.za or phone 263 (0) 772735722.

Annex A: Zimbabwe Regional Summit Participants

Key: