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Faith Katete-Features Correspondent

After the Nairobi Summit in 2019, Zimbabwe National Task Force on Population and Development was given the mandate to trace the progress being done by the country as far as the summit’s commitments are concerned.

The summit offered an inclusive platform for a broad range of public and private sector stakeholders, heads of State and Government, ministers, civil society, youth leaders, parliamentarians, business representatives to come together and agree on a set of 12 global commitments that would collectively advance the ICDP agenda and would finish the unfinished business.

The global commitments which have been developed by a steering committee at the global level were organised around five themes which included universal sexual reproductive health and rights in the contexts of universal health coverage; creating financial momentum; demographic diversity and sustainable development; gender based violence (GBV) and harmful practices against women and girls and sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in humanitarian and fragile contexts among others.

 Last week, different private stakeholders including the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development, Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council (ZNFPC), Zimstat, Parliament of Zimbabwe and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) among others met and discussed the progress reports and challenges on the commitments that Zimbabwe dedicated at the Nairobi Summit two years ago. One can note that in the new dispensation, there is a momentous change as far the health sector is concerned.

Matilda Sindende principal gender officer at the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development said the ministry drafted the Marriages Bill and it has been submitted to the Attorney General.

“Currently the Bill is going through parliamentary processes. 

“The Bill seeks to harmonise all marriages laws thus age of marriage has been set at 18 which is in line with the constitutional provisions.

“It focuses on equality of partners within the marriage and at its dissolution,” said Sindende.

She pointed out that the Costed Implementation Strategy for the National Action Plan (NAP) on Ending Child Marriage has been finalised.

“The strategy was launched on 10 May 2021 in Mbire district and currently the Ministry is mobilising resources for the implementation of the strategy.”

“The preparations are underway to constitute the coordination mechanism for this strategy,” she said.

The ministry, Mrs Sindende added, established seven One Stop Centres (OSC) for survivors of GBV in Gweru, Rusape, Gwanda, Chinhoyi, Bindura, Epworth and Chipinge, the OSC model facilitate the provision of all key services required by GBV or sexual violence survivors under one roof namely health, psychosocial, legal and police services.

“Construction work for the Mashonaland East and Bulawayo one stop centres is currently underway,” she explained.

Sindende revealed that the ministry is working with Musasa Project and FACT in provision of temporary shelter to survivors of GBV, 12 community based shelters are currently operational and these are in Bubi, Gutu, Mwenezi, Buhera, Marange, Gokwe, Makonde, Hauna, Mazowe, Chikomba, Bikita and Umzingwane.

“In addition, there are three urban shelters in Harare, Bulawayo and Gweru. These shelters serve as temporary safe spaces for women in abusive situations.”

“These shelters now have an added focus on providing economic empowerment and livelihood support programmes for GBV survivors,” said Sindende.

She also added that the Ministry launched the mobile one stop centre concept on December 6 2019 in Hopley.

“The mobile one stop centres are being rolled out in 12 districts in order to decentralize GBV services to hard to reach areas.”

“The targeted districts are Hopley, Epworth, Umzingwane, Muzarabani, Shamva, Mt Darwin, Mbire, Hurungwe, Makonde, Mutasa, Chimanimani and Chipinge,” she said.

The ministry, she added, initiated the process of developing a national strategy on the participation of women in decision making.

“The aim of the strategy is to promote full participation and representation of women at all levels of decision making across of all spheres of development since women are under-represented in leadership positions in elected office, the civil service and in the private sector. 

“The ministry also developed the Girls and Young Women Empowerment framework whose thrust is to achieve gender equality through the social and economic empowerment of girls and women, “she said.

Sindende also revealed that in 2020, 40 women groups were funded through the Women Development Fund, pointing out that the sectors funded were agriculture mining, manufacturing, tourism and retailing.

The projects, she noted, have improved disposable income among group members.

Mrs Sindende highlighted some challenges that the ministry faced in trying to fulfil the commitments.

These include Covid-19 and lockdowns which negatively affected women and girls in several ways.

She further explained that there was an increase in sexual gender-based violence (SGBV), access to GBV was a challenge owing to restrictions in movements and the informal sector was the hardest hit by the lockdown measures.

Sadly, the informal sector is where a lot of women are active.

Principal economist in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Mrs Sylocious Chaturuka, said on Domestic Resource Mobilisation, the Government allocated 12,7 percent towards health up from around 9 percent in 2020.

“In absolute terms, health was allocated $54,7 billion from the budget. 

“About 8 percent ($5,27billion) is earmarked for public health programme of which 35 percent ($1,86 billion) goes towards family health.”

“Family health aiming on improving reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, adolescent health and nutrition services.

“Additionally about $451 million will be mobilised through statutory and other resources,” she said.

Mrs Chaturuka highlighted some of the challenges which include occurrence of shocks such as Tropical Cyclone Idai and Covid-19.

“Lockdown restriction on movement slowed down women to access the SRHR, increased incidences of pregnancies including the youth, deceleration school related programmes due to prolonged closure of schools and tight fiscal space among others,” she noted.

In upholding the right to sexual and reproductive health in humanitarian and fragile and contexts, Government has progress on coming up with Civil Protection Unit thus national coordinating body for emergency preparedness and response.

Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council executive director, Dr Munyaradzi Murwira, said the Government had come up with provincial and district emergency preparedness teams, national guidelines for SRH services in humanitarian situations guidelines (emergency teams, mobile services outreach) Cyclone Idai and Covid-19 experiences.

“CSO response framework is in place and GBV or SGBV more prevalent in crisis situations,” said Dr Murwira.

Dr Murwira highlighted some of the challenges, which include poor coordination, lack of timely response, and limited capacity of CPU. 

He said private sector engagement is required while there is limited funding.

United Nations Population Fund planning, monitoring and evaluation analyst, Mr Sunday Manyenya, said they have been collecting data from 24 provinces and from that information, 173 children below 18 years are pregnant.

“Two hundred and twenty-six children below the age of 18 are in marriage and 6 percent of the children under the age of 18 are experiencing gender based violence.

“We need to do something about maternal deaths and SHRH issues,” he said.

ICPD programme of action was adopted in Cairo Egypt in 1994. 

“The watershed Cairo agreement has been the cornerstone of the global reproductive rights movement for the past 26 years.

 At the Cairo meeting, Zimbabwe was one of the 179 governments that adopted a revolutionary Programme of Action and called for women’s reproductive health and rights to take centre stage in national and global development efforts.

The Cairo meeting also brought out the link between reproductive health and women’s empowerment and how the two are necessary for the advancement of society.

ICFP serves as a strategic inflection point for the family planning and reproductive health community worldwide. 

It provides an opportunity for political leaders, scientists, researchers, policymakers, advocates, and youth to disseminate knowledge, celebrate successes, and identify next steps toward reaching the goal of enabling women to access voluntary, quality contraception by 2020.