ZIMCODD pushes for women participation

LETTICIA MAGOMBO

The Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD) is pushing for the participation of women and youth in public resource management in Zimbabwe through various awareness campaigns.

According to the ZIMCODD public resources management report for March, access to public resources by women groups was rated 65% poor while access to public resources by the youth was rated poor by 45% while 30% rated it fair and 15% of the districts rating it good and another 10% rating it very good.

ZIMCODD Communications & Campaigns Specialist Taurai  Mafundikwa told Business Times that the inclusion of women and youth in economic governance and decision making was very critical.

“Women and youth constitute the biggest demographic of Zimbabwe’s population. They have been marginalised in most cases, yet the decisions made directly impact their day to day lives. National Budgeting for example, should be reflective of women and youth needs.

“It should be gender sensitive and youth centered to adequately meet their needs. This is also most importantly an issue of fulfilling rights enshrined in the constitution,” he said.

Despite this there is still a lack of unwillingness by the demographic classes to participate in public resource management.

Mafundikwa said that the reason for the limited participation in areas such as Gokwe and Kwekwe in public resource management were attributed to apathy and patriarchal forces.

“It’s primarily not an issue of choice that women and youth are marginalised in Socio-economic planning at national level. Some of the issues cited during the campaign include patriarchal forces and apathy amongst the youth to engage in issues of governance.”

ZIMCODD under the hashtag #FeminomicsZW campaign targeted areas such as, Gokwe, Kwekwe, Goromonzi, Zvishavane and Matobo to bring awareness about the need for participation in public resource management.

The campaign focused on women, youth, small holder farmers and informal traders.

They also conducted Twitter Spaces and Radio programmes under the banner of Making Taxes Work for Women/ Youth.

“There is a positive response from these communities and one can cite commitments from Kwekwe where attendees have joined a WhatsApp group with duty-bearers and are directly interacting every day,” Mafundikwa said.