Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Hilda Mugaragumbo
Rozaria Memorial Trust
Presented at
5th AFRICITIES, Morocco
16-20 December, 2009
Presentation Summary
• Background on Zimbabwe, Situation of
Women
• RMT Programme on Gender, HIV and
Violence Against Women
• Engagement with Local Government
– Key local government structures
– Stakeholder and partnerships
• Lessons Learnt
Challenges
• Recommendations
BACKGROUND ON ZIMBABWE
• Zimbabwe population in 12 million with more than 50% women
• Murewa District population 162 167 people, estimated at 84 130
women and 78 037 men
• Zimbabwe has been going through a political, humanitarian,
economic and social crisis
• Negative impact on women and poor communities, including on
poverty, health, HIV and AIDS
• Passed the Domestic Violence Act
• Zimbabwe adopted a National AIDS Programme and Plan of Action
• Zimbabwe has ratified the CEDAW and Committed to Beijing
Platform for Action on Gender,
• Zimbabwe is 2nd country to sign SADC Protocol on Gender and
Development
RMT’S LOCAL TO LOCAL DIALOGUE
APPROACH
• RMT was founded in 2007 in honour of the late Mbuya
Rozaria Dizha, a local community leader
• Rights and leadership for women especially those living with HIV and
AIDS
• People in the community know very little about their rights and
how to use the law
• Also, local government officials lack the expertise in handling or dealing with women issues. They have
limited capacity and competence in gender planning.
• With the political crisis in Zimbabwe, most local government institutions at local level have become too
politicised, and this creates sensitivity in work of NGOs.
• The planning process of local government involves a lot of protocol and bureaucracy. Valuable time and
resources are lost in the process.
• Effective local to local dialogue and interaction is hampered by the non-availability of reliable transport
services, and women from rural communities are unable to travel for meetings.
• Women are a key resource in communities and at times their issues are used by politicians to advance
their own interests instead of promoting the empowerment and development of rural/community women.
Challenges cont……
• There is lack of proper coordination within the local governance and civil society
organizations. This has created a lot of duplication in areas of women and HIV.
• Another constraint emanates from the lack of interest by some men within the local
government to mainstream gender issues in the aspects of their work.
• The local budget structures of the local authorities hardly takes into consideration
women’s issues.
• Limited financial resources: the local government as the national budget allocations
on gender mainstreaming is almost zero. The district no budgetary support from UN
systems and other bilateral and multilateral agencies for gender oriented
development programmes.
• NGOs like Rozaria Memorial Trust with women and gender programme have small
funds and operate with limited capacity (skills, staff, transport)
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
• Bringing the local to local dialogue between civil organizations and the local
government is important in women empowerment programmes.
• Continued training and capacity building for local gender planning, budgeting
and monitoring and evaluation is essentials.