Gender Equality and Elections BRIDGE Modular Workshop for EMB Staff

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) ) an election management body with assistance from the local office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) conducted a BRIDGE Modular workshop on Gender Equality and Elections for its electoral staff. ZEC is in the process of reviewing its Gender Policy and felt it prudent to capacitate its staff with knowledge and information that will improve their understanding of the subject and enhance their approaches to access and inclusion issues for women in all electoral processes. 

While Zimbabwe’s policy and legal framework generally recognises the disparities that exist between men and women and the need to advance women’s participation in political and public life, women’s participation remains low with the 2023 Harmonised General Elections showing a significant dip in women’s representation in elective offices. Admittedly, the inclusion of provisions in the law on women’s quotas at both Parliamentary and local authority level has helped in boosting women representation, a lot more, however, could still be done to enhance participation by addressing the myriad of barriers that still confront women.

The Commission identified forty-eight (48) participants (18 females and 30 males) working in its offices in different capacities from across the 10 provinces of the country to take part in this training. These participants were then divided into two groups and taken through the module by two facilitation teams with each team having twenty-four (24) participants (9 females and 15 males) each.

The facilitation team comprised Utloile Silaigwana, Accrediting Facilitator, Shamiso Chahuruva, Workshop Facilitator alongside Phanankosi Mpofu, Hendrina Mukuvare and Zex Pudurai TtF Complete facilitators all from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.  

The participants expressed a lot of keenness and were very engaging. They appreciated the interactive and participatory approach of BRIDGE as well the various activities (role plays – group work – agree/disagree and the icebreakers and energisers). Participants revealed that the module enabled them to view issues through a gender lens. They appreciated the role that the EMB can play to ensure the inclusion of women throughout the electoral cycle and were able to identify some of the barriers and the strategies that the Commission could employ to enhance women’s participation and inclusion throughout the electoral cycle. At the end of the workshop, participants developed actions plans outlining how they aimed to incorporate lessons learnt and strategies identified in their own workspace

Phanankosi Mpofu, Hendrina Mukuvare and Zex Pudurai TtF facilitators were accredited to Workshop Facilitator alongside the group 1 facilitation team.