By Tendai Keith Guvamombe
Harare, Zimbabwe – Last Friday marked a significant stride for gender equality in Zimbabwe with the official launch of the National Gender Policy.
The Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ), a leading alliance of women’s rights organizations and activists, expressed their delight at this “milestone” development, with Chairperson Muchanyara Mukamuri delivering a powerful address at the event.
Mukamuri is also the Executive Director of Self Help Development Foundation.
Mukamuri, representing a broad spectrum of Zimbabwean women, lauded the policy as a “crucial step towards achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment.”
She highlighted key areas the WCoZ will focus on in conjunction with the new policy, including bolstering mechanisms to prevent and respond to gender-based violence (GBV) and the urgent eradication of child marriages.
Furthermore, Mukamuri emphasized the importance of increasing women’s participation in leadership and decision-making processes, as well as fostering women’s economic empowerment through targeted programs.
“We urge the Zimbabwe government to ensure timely and adequate resource allocation for policy implementation,” Mukamuri stressed, cautioning that without it, the policy risks becoming “another document on the shelf.”
The WCoZ also called for robust partnerships with women’s organizations to ensure the policy’s relevance and impact, advocating for its translation into vernacular languages and a “pocket-size, easy-to-read” format for broader community dissemination.
The establishment of strong monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to track progress was also deemed essential.
Mukamuri concluded with a firm commitment from the WCoZ: “The Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe commits to supporting policy implementation and holding stakeholders accountable.”
She powerfully reiterated, “we will hold you accountable particularly because our constitution, the Constitution of Zimbabwe clearly stipulates gender equality in some sections of the Constitution.”
