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The Sustainable Enterprise Development for Women and Youth (SEDWAY) project (2022 – 2026), funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB), seeks to enhance the institutional capacity of the Government of Zimbabwe to improve the enabling environment for women and youth inclusion to align with the National Development Strategy 1(NDS1).
This emerged at a stakeholder consultation workshop held in Harare last week on the review and alignment of broad-based women’s economic empowerment framework to national development frameworks, which was facilitated by the University of Zimbabwe’s Department of Economics and Development on behalf of the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small, and Medium Enterprise Development.
Dr. Moses Chundu, a Lecturer of Economics at the UZ, while facilitating the workshop, said the programme is in sync with the United Nations (UN) that seeks to achieve gender equality and empower all women and youths as enunciated in the Sustainable Development Goals 5 and 8.
“The UN also seeks a global world defined by full and productive employment and decent work for everybody and equal pay for equal work of equal value for all men and women (UN, 2018, SDG 5, SDG 8).
“Zimbabwe is currently in its fifth generation of ILO Decent Work Country Programme (DWCP), which runs from 2022 – 2026 in line with the National Development Strategy, 1 (2021-2025),” Dr. Chundu said.
Support to DWCP is being delivered through the Sustainable Enterprise Development for Women and Youth (SEDWAY) project, 2022 – 2026 funded by the African Development Bank.
The current project relates to Component 2 of the SEDWAY programme (Institutional support, enabling frameworks and access to markets) which seeks to enhance the institutional capacity of the Government of Zimbabwe to improve the enabling environment for women and youth inclusion to align with the National Development Strategy 1(NDS1).
The Decent Work Country Programme (DWCP) is a vital instrument for promoting gender equality and non-discrimination and raising the visibility of women workers’ rights.
Zimbabwe has Vision 2030 which reflects the collective aspirations and determination of citizens towards a Prosperous and Empowered Upper Middle Income Society by 2030. Vision 2030 is to be realised through the Stabilisation Programme SP (2018-2020) and two successive Five-Year National Development Strategies; NDS1 (2021-2025) and NDS2 (2026-2030). To achieve the aspirations of Vision 2030, Zimbabwe developed its economic development blueprint, the National Development Strategy (NDS1).
The National Development Strategy 1 is a comprehensive way that tries to unlock the development trajectory of the country towards Vision 2030.
“However, the current Broad-based Women Economic and Empowerment Framework was developed in 2016, and may not be compatible with the provisions of NDS1 and Vision 2030. Hence, a need to align the broad-based women’s economic empowerment framework with national development frameworks as part of the framework review,” Dr. Chundu said.
He added that the current study will guide women’s economic empowerment activities in line with the National Development Frameworks and national, regional and international standards on women’s economic empowerment and gender equity.
It will also set the basis for women’s economic empowerment with an emphasis on employment, participation in key economic decisions, as well as informal and formal business ownership.
The study also seeks to identify adequate competencies for women and their institutions to take on business opportunities and, build partnerships, coalitions, institutions, and structures that accelerate women’s economic empowerment.
The study will also align the Broad-based Women Economic and Empowerment Framework with International Labour Standards and identify where there might be gaps.
In an interview with this publication, Annamarie Kiaga, Specialist on Informal Economy and Officer-in-Charge for the ILO Country Office for Zimbabwe and Namibia, emphasised the need to create jobs and conditions in which people can work – with freedom, equity, safety, and dignity.
“We should help the working poor, especially women and youth, to step out of poverty and informality into quality livelihoods. And that is why the ILO is at the forefront in helping countries like Zimbabwe, where more than 76 percent of workers are informally employed, develop policies that keep people moving into progressively better jobs with living wages, respect for workers’ rights, non-discrimination and gender equality, facilitating workers organization and collective bargaining, universal social protection, adequate pensions and access to health care,” Kiaga said.