By Tatenda Mujeyi
The Women’s Academy For Leadership and Political Excellence, (WALPE) has sought partnership with women led community based organisations for strengthening and capacitating women representation.
“Women-led CBOs are organic groups of women leaders who are doing a lot of good work in terms of promoting the empowerment of women and girls at community level. Considering that they reside in communities, relate with community members on a day to day basis, they are the ones who know community needs more.” Sitabile Dewa, Executive Director, (WALPE) and WeCBOs host said in an interview.
The WeCOBs is a network of women led CBO’s for collaborations, fund solicitation, development, institutional building and unlocking potential among other unitary goals as hosted by WALPE.
“The Network of Women-led Community Based Organisations (WeCOBs) is a coalition platform for networking, peer learning, fundraising, strategic collaborations, movement building and institutional capacity strengthening of member organizations.” Dewa also said.
Furthermore, “It endeavours to devise common strategies for collaboration in enhancing community development work, the WeCOBs seek to contribute to unlocking the potential within women-led community based organisations to fully achieve their results.”
Dewa also emphasised that the program will seek partnering, “women working in the following thematic areas: gender based violence, sexual reproductive health rights, climate justice, social service delivery, peace building and conflict transformation, democracy and governance, elections and access to education and IT for women and girls including women with disabilities.” Dewa also said.
The program seeks to recognise the notable philanthropic work that has been done by women leaders in Zimbabwe and facilitate for collaborative efforts.
“These women leaders have been doing tremendous work with very little resources and recognition hence the move to set up a network for collective organising, fundraising and programme implementation.” The WALPE Executive Director also said.
The program will enhance efforts Zimbabwe has also been fostering in implementing the Sustainable development goal 5, SDG 5- Gender Equality and Women Empowerment.
According to the UNDP Zimbabwe SDG Country report of 2020 “In 2008, the country had a score of 1.5 on policies for social inclusion/equity which increased to 3.7 in 2018 (1 is the lowest and 6 the highest level). In 2018, Zimbabwe’s score specific to gender equity was 4.0 which was above the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) average of 3.2.”
WALPE concurred with the UNDP Zimbabwe SDG report as it related to the increased number of women leaders in key positions across sectors.
“Women have organised themselves through informal and formal platforms to encourage and support each other to stand up for leadership and this has led to an increase in women representation in key positions at community level such as in School Development Committees (SDCs), Health Centre Committees (HCCs), Ward and Village Development Committees, church positions, councillors, MPs and some have even contested as Presidents in the 2018 elections.” Dewa also said in the interview.
The project currently has a total membership of 25 women led CBO’s across Zimbabwe and has the intention to grow.
“Currently WeCBOs has a total membership of 25 women-led CBOs drawn from all the 10 provinces in Zimbabwe…The WeCBOs is a national programme that targets women- led CBOs and has membership in all the ten provinces and shall continue recruiting more members nationwide.” Dewa also said.
The program however comes at a time the ruling government has strengthened efforts to curtail operations of ‘non state actors’ citing regime change agenda’s growth.
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