Gender issues must be on council budgets

CHINHOYI – GENDER budgeting is a strategy to achieve equality between women and
men by focusing on how public resources are collected and spent.

This was said by the Gender Links country director, Priscilla Maposa, while addressing
the Press and local authorities’ gender focal persons during a one- day workshop held
in Harare recently.

Maposa said that when fiscal policies and administrative procedures are structured to
address gender inequality in a proper manner, communities will realise that gender
budgeting is the way to go.

Her organisation, in partnership with Diakonia through support from the Embassy of
Sweden, has been rolling out different programmes with Norton Town Council,
Makonde Rural District Council and other local authorities in Mashonaland West
province to ensure gender budgeting initiative is achieved.

Gender budgeting initiatives contribute to gender mainstreaming by focusing gender
dimensions on local government budgets, both the revenue and expenditure side.

Makonde Rural District Council managed to transform a farm house in Ward 13 into a
maternity clinic now called Gandawasvika after realising that expectant mothers were
walking long distances to access health facilities.

Chinhoyi municipality has six clinics which have since stopped offering maternity
services due to shortage of qualified personnel.

“Flight of nurses, we hire some on call but as soon as they find greener pastures they
will go,” said Council spokesperson, Tichaona Mlauzi.

Sources told Telegraph that water shortages is affecting the operations of clinics,
adding that borehole drilling could be the fastest short-term measure to equip the
facilities.
Gender mainstreaming means moving gender equality concerns from the backwaters
and side streams into mainstream.

This approach was opted for by several nations when the commitment was made to
incorporate equal opportunities for women and men into all communities’ policies and
activities.

Examples include the employment strategy, the research policy gender assessment
tools, gender specific statistics, while indicators and benchmarks can also be
implemented for guidance.

Gender equality is stated in Section 80 of the Zimbabwe Constitution. It focuses on the
rights of women and highlights the provision for equal opportunities, in political, social
and economic activities.