In 2020, the situation for women in Zimbabwe was becoming increasingly restrictive. Following the 2018 elections, violence against women increased. Although 28% – a relatively high number – of seats national Parliament went to women, this was largely due to a quota system that reserves a certain number of seats for women. This reinforced the view that the selected women were not legitimate power holders. It was no wonder then that at the local level where there was no quota system, the number of seats held by women decreased in those elections. This was compounded by widespread discriminatory views of women leaders. Women who seek or hold leadership positions are often subject to violence or reprisals.
Advocacy for women and their rights were not being led by grassroots voices or agendas. Women who had been voted into political office, were not accountable to women who voted for them and ended up just following the political party lines.
The CARE project was created to remedy this. Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ), Women in Politics Support Unit (WiPSU) and Womankind Worldwide launched this innovative and impactful movement strengthening project. Together, they focused on growing the feminist movement in rural parts of Zimbabwe, supporting women in the new chapters of the movement to know and demand their rights and powering up women’s political participation.
During the project, WCoZ’s focus was on movement strengthening activities, such as women’s leadership schools and women’s rights convening platforms to develop collective advocacy plans. They also ran awareness campaigns to promote women’s leadership and influence through diverse media outlets. WiPSU’s focus was on activities related to the formal political sphere, including a transformational leadership programme which worked with aspiring women and those already in office to understand and navigate power.
At the end of year 5, because of CARE project, the power of the Zimbabwean women’s movement to collectively organise and advocate at national and grassroots level has grown significantly. But this has been in the face of multiple challenges.
The CARE project operated in a context that witnessed various shifts and changes. The project was also implemented through the COVID-19 pandemic and had to adapt to dynamics it brought in the socio-economic spaces.
One of the key factors was the general shrinking of the civic and political spaces, which resulted in a notable decline in the number of women candidates and political office holders. The rise of ultra-conservative social norms in Zimbabwe continues to negatively impacting women’s rights work. In March 2024, the government of Zimbabwe brought in the Private Voluntary Bill (PVO). The Bill’s aim was to allegedly ‘curb money-laundering and financing of terrorism and to ensure that Non-Governmental Organisations do not undertake political lobbying.’ However, in reality, it curtails the actions of many civil society organisations to do advocacy and made it expensive and bureaucratic to operate. The feminist movement is also further targeted because of the nature of their work on social norm change.
Despite these challenges, WCoZ, WiPSU and Womankind embodied a collective commitment to advancing women’s rights and amplifying the voices of women across Zimbabwe. Through doing so, and teamed with their collective expertise, reached milestones for the movement and for the women of Zimbabwe.
The women’s movement has had to act fast in response to the threat of the PVO Bill. WCoZ consulted with women’s rights organisations to draft key demands and areas for negotiation. Despite 70% of women’s rights organisations working on political participation, this term had been understood by the government as political lobbying of a political party. WCoZ was able to engage and reach consensus with the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs team that political activity defined in the PVO Bill refers to partisan work of political parties and does not refer to the work of most women’s rights organisations who are seeking to increase political participation of marginalised women.
Together, the women’s movement brought forward the Marriage Bill which seeks to clarify in law that no one under the age of 18 can marry legally because they are a child. It was approved by Parliament in early September 2022. This result is testament to the time and effort of the Zimbabwe women’s movement over many years, advocating with duty bearers and raising awareness in many platforms, including social media. The result was achieved in spite of resistance from law makers and community gate keepers who had understood the law, specifically the Section 40 which introduced Civil Partnerships, would promote immoralities within communities.
During this time, radio programmes were designed by the CARE team. The radio hosts of the programmes fed back that the shows had helped to demystify views on the marriage law. Since the radio programmes, WCoZ have also observed that the controversy over the law has died down within the media which is indicative of increased acceptance of its contents.
When the Labour Amendment act was reviewed from March 2023 – June 2023, WCoZ hosted internal membership dialogues to raise sexual harassment as a collective issue for the women’s movement. Through bringing together all membership organisations talking about sexual harassment across all different thematic areas, sexual harassment became a mainstream issue in the women’s movement and a priority issue for the women’s agenda also. If it hadn’t been for the consistent work of the women’s movement over a number of years, the debate and public reporting on incidents of sexual harassment from other sectors would not have come out as they did. The scope of the issue and its impacts are now being taken seriously by the government and the women’s movement in response.
Finally, as a result of the collective advocacy actions by WiPSU and WCOZ with the Politics and Decision Making cluster under the Women’s Coalition, the Zimbabwe Gender Commission (ZGC) has shifted its policy position on women’s representation in Zimbabwe from a proportional representation quota-based system to an adoption of 50/50 women’s representation in existing electoral seats. The commission has moved from the question of whether or not it should integrate protection of women’s seats at 50/50 in the existing electoral system, to agreeing it will do this. To add to that, they then engaged WiPSU to chair the task team on developing the methodology of how to do it. This means that the struggle for women’s representation in electoral systems will no longer be about creating additional seats for women but rather integrating women’s seats within the existing electoral system.
Over the course of the five-year project, WCoZ expanded it’s reach across the Zimbabwean women’s movement and into new rural locations like Zvishavane, Mount Darwin and Binga. Now with 16 chapters, WCoZ has facilitated significant growth in the national women’s movement and been able to reach women from across a range of communities, from LBTQI+ women to indigenous women. When feminist movements are diverse and truly representative of the women in their communities, they are not only more effective, but they thrive.
During CARE, Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) was co-created. It aimed to document women’s strategies for demanding accountability, the ways in which women are organising for change, and to explore ways to achieve 50/50 representation. All of this, grounded in the lived realities of women in Zimbabwe.
Adapted FPAR was finalised at the beginning of 2024 through the production of a research report and summary briefing. This was successfully launched at an event at the 68th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68) in March 2024 titled ‘Zimbabwean grassroots women’s activism and leadership in addressing poverty’, co-sponsored by Womankind, WCoZ and WiPSU. Decolonised knowledge sharing is a key component of strong movements and the FPAR showed Zimbabwean women’s movement’s capacity and expertise in producing innovative research. The FPAR was then launched at a national event in Zimbabwe at the beginning of July 2024, attended by the Ministry of Women Affairs, Zimbabwe Gender Commission, national media outlets, women’s rights leaders and funding partners. An illustrated version of the research was translated into 3 local languages with financial support from Womankind and printed and disseminated in local communities.
In the 2023 elections, the main political parties very actively undermined women’s representation. Undemocratic party candidate selection processes removed many sitting women candidates from re-standing in their seats and de-prioritised the selection of women as candidates. This further reinforced the message for those women councillors and MPs that did make it into power that their party priorities are actively misaligned with the women’s rights agenda. This combination of weak governance and poor constitution created space for the women’s rights agenda to be used as a tool to be elected by some women candidates. But, after that, they would not deliver on the agenda once elected and only be accountable to the party, not women in the community.
The Transformational Feminist Leadership Training led by WIPSU has been running since the beginning of the project. Reaching 41 current and 210 aspiring councillors, these trainings create important spaces for women from different political parties to engage with each other at provincial and district level. During the sessions, women were trained in the importance of collective approaches as feminist methodologies for delivering change in their communities. Through this, they have built genuine working relationships across parties and are defying the toxic masculinity of the party-political mainstream system.
The transformational leadership training became a way of trying to preserve the women’s agenda in response to this. Women were trained on the power and importance of transformational feminist leadership through which they remain accountable to delivering on the women’s agenda once in power. The leadership training and community based collective training of women has become a mechanism to dilute the impact of this trend and to push back on this toxic form of power.
WIPSU have been continuing to use the transformational feminist leadership manual they developed earlier in the project to train prospective and current counsellors and MPs. This supports them to lead in ways that are more accountable to the women who they serve and to foster strong commitment to the women’s agenda. This includes through the development and implementation of long-term personal development plans to set out how they will put their feminist leadership approaches into practice. The plans centre community interventions on feminist collective actions, supporting the cultivation of future leaders through mentoring. The commitment of the women counsellors and MPs involved to their ongoing engagement in this training and their personal development plans has had a significant and positive effect on their leadership practice. In some cases, women have remained accountable to delivering for women in their communities even after they are not re-elected.
There continues to be a strong and vibrant women’s movement in Zimbabwe that is holding the government to account at all levels. The different geographical chapters of movement under the WCoZ umbrella are pushing for change. One notable example is in Mvuma, where despite the patriarchal nature of rural communities, women began a collective campaign to vote for women to gain leadership positions at council level. This was a way to push for greater women’s voice and to push for women’s development priorities in their communities. And it worked! Three women managed to be voted in the Chirumhanzu Rural District Council while four more were added through the 30 percent quota that was introduced by the government in 2023. This has provided a fertile ground for women in Mvuma to speak out against inequalities working with female leaders as their allies.
In October 2024, women’s rights activists in Mvuma joined with women in churches, women in politics and women in the community and held a public march to demonstrate against a deteriorating health service delivery. The march also inspired more women who are now joining the movement and gaining confidence to speak out against the inequalities they face. The solidarity between women political leaders and local women has ushered in a new era of women who speak with one voice and whose agenda is clear.
One of the prospective women MP candidates for the CCC party in KweKwe involved in WIPSU transformational leadership training increased her confidence as a community leader. She utilised her increased agency and cultivated such a strong relationship with her community that she has become a de-facto leader despite not being selected as the party candidate for elections. She participated in the WIPSU transformational leadership training at provincial level. WIPSU also trained the women in her community in Redcliff Ward 9 to engage duty bearers at community level to engage in the women’s community action plan to resolve their issues through collective action. This built their confidence, knowledge of their rights and understanding that of women as important political constituents, all of which underpinned how this strong relationship was built.
During her term as a Member of Parliament for the Mutasa North constituency, Honorable Chido Madiwa was supported by WiPSU and WCoZ through the CARE project. This built her capacity as an MP and she managed to change major laws in Zimbabwe.
Tapiwa Kapiche is 33 years old, from Penhalonga, a village in Mutasa, Zimbabwe. After being part of Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe’s (WCoZ) local chapter, Tapiwa has found community and been an inspiration to other women.
The CARE project has emerged as a transformative force within the women’s rights movement in Zimbabwe, catalysing significant advancements in gender equality and empowering women at both community and national levels. In a pivotal moment for women’s rights in Zimbabwe, the CARE project has navigated a complex landscape marked by socio-economic upheaval, the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, shifting political dynamics, and the urgent challenges posed by climate change. As the civic space evolved, the project has demonstrated remarkable adaptability, responding to the shifting realities of the operating environment with resilience and innovation.
The CARE project effectively addressed systemic barriers by leveraging the strengths of its partners: the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ), the Women in Politics Support Unit (WiPSU), and Womankind Worldwide. WCoZ served as a central hub for community mobilisation, supporting women across diverse backgrounds and enhancing their participation in decision-making processes. WiPSU provided crucial technical support, bridging community advocacy with national political engagement, while Womankind ensured financial and strategic support aligned with feminist principles.
Through strategic partnerships, innovative advocacy, and a commitment to intersectionality, the CARE project has not only addressed immediate challenges, but has also laid the groundwork for sustained activism. The lessons learned and successes achieved reflect a profound understanding of the complexities of power dynamics and the necessity for women’s voices to be amplified in all spheres of society.
With thanks to:
The Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ) project team: Rotina Mafume is the Programme Manager, Rebecca Gwaure is the Membership and Network Officer, Beaullah Huni is Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning Officer, Mercy Jaravani is the National Coordinator, Nyarai Chirenda, Finance Manager
The Women in Politics Support Unit (WiPSU) project team: Sakhile Sifelani-Ngoma (Executive Director), Charlene Bangamu the Communications Officer, Spiwe Mutonga Finance and Administration Officer .
Womankind team members past and present: Laura Brown Programme Manager, Movement and Network Strengthening, Natasha Horsfield – Programme Management Officer, Gurvir Deol – Programme Finance Manager, Yvonne Ndirangu – Communications Officer, Hannah Coombes – Communications Officer, Sally Gift – Communications Manager
Benevolence Taguta, final evaluation consultant
