Economic Empowerment
Source: All Africa
GOVERNMENT in conjunction with the Zimbabwe Women's Resource Centre Network has embarked on a project aimed at capacitating officials at different levels of ministries in developing gender-sensitive budgets.
In line with the project - dubbed gender budgeting and economic empowerment - which is expected to run for the next four years, a national gender budgeting training manual was also launched at a function in the capital yesterday
Explaining the concept of gender budgeting, Women Affairs Minister Dr Olivia Muchena, said it was a gender mainstreaming tool used to ensure that Government policies addressed everyone's needs.
"It looks at biases that arise from resource allocations in recognition of the different roles, needs, responsibilities and relations of women and men in society," said Dr Muchena.
She said the training manual would assist with guidelines on training of Government technocrats, policy makers and civil society in applying gender sensitive approaches in planning and budgeting
In addition to gender budgeting issues, Dr Muchena said there was need to prioritise and target specific women issues for funding or subsidisation.
These include reproductive health, scholarships for identified disciplines such as science and engineering, women's empowerment fund and resources for the implementation of provisions of the domestic violence Act.
ZWRCN executive director Ms Naome Chimbetete, said the gender budgeting and economic empowerment project was expected to advance women's economic security and rights.
In a joint communique issued after the official launch in Harare yesterday, Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development, ZWRCN and the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe called on all sectors of the society to ensure that their policies, programmes and budgets addressed gender issues.
"Mindful of the fact that gender budgeting remains a relatively new concept we have produced the national budgeting training manual as a tool for building a critical mass of experts to help sustain the process and ensure institutionalisation of gender budgeting.
"We call upon all stakeholders to support the project and to offer solidarity towards the advancement of gender equality, equity and women's empowerment in Zimbabwe," reads part of the joint communique.