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By Bernard Chiketo
MUTARE – A leading women-rights institution has moved to unify women-led community-based organisations (WeCOBs) from across the country under a national network that was launched in Mutare last Friday
Women Academy of Leadership and Political Excellency (WALPE) executive director Stabile Dewa said the network which has membership from organisations from across the country sought to enhance their efforts to facilitate funding in the push to cover the many facets of women empowerment efforts.
She said although only five of the more than dozen organisations that were in attendance had already secured some funding under the platform, more will be achieved under the initiative.
“We want to create a platform where we fundraise on behalf of women-led organisations and I’m glad that we are launching this platform when we already secured funds for five women-led organisations,” Dewa said.
She said WALPE was not trying to secure funds to then implement projects on their behalf but would disburse and only support them as they pursue their various agendas.
“This is not about us getting money and implementing on your behalf but the money will come through us and we disburse to you so that you grow, so that you also fundraise, so that we see you get published in newspapers, on television, and we listen to you on the radio growing your institutions,” Dewa said.
Meanwhile, women’s under-representation as candidates in electoral processes was due to the low numbers of candidates that entered the electoral race by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).
ZEC Manicaland provincial elections officer Tompson Chiwereweshe gave the WALPE organized WeCOBs launch chillingly low statistics of female candidates in the 2018 harmonized elections.
Female candidates were a paltry 12.4 percent in the national assembly election and 12 percent in the local authority contest.
Chiwereweshe gave the statistics as he encouraged women to open the door to exercising their democratic right to participate in the electoral processes by registering to vote.
“If you are not a registered voter you will not exercise your democratic right to vote, to be voted for, and neither can you nominate a candidate…
“During the 2018 harmonized elections in Manicaland for the National Assembly, we had 152 male candidates and 22 females… For councilors, we had 849 candidates – 747 males and 102 females,” Chiwereweshe said.
Dewa said her organisation felt challenged by the low participation of women as election candidates and would commit to improving the numbers.
WALPE works to support women from all walks of life including politicians from both the ruling party and opposition movements.