Elect young women into decision-making positions

THE Women's Academy for Leadership and Political Excellence (Walpe) with support from the Open Society Foundations in partnership with three womenled community based organisations namely, Girls Table Trust — Matabeleland, Rural Young Women Support Network — Mashonaland West, Ithemba For Girls Trust — Manicaland and Bustop TV, which will be responsible for amplifying the campaign on various media spaces launched the #ElectAYoungWoman campaign in Harare on February 8, 2024.

The campaign was necessitated by the perpetual decrease in the number of women, especially young women, elected or appointed to key leadership and decision-making positions.

Zimbabwe has an 11-year-old Constitution that makes clear provisions for gender equality in Sections 17, 56 and 80.

Unfortunately, these provisions are not being adhered to, resulting in less than 5% of young women occupying leadership and decision-making positions at both local and national levels across the country.

Young women are underrepresented in spaces were critical decisions are made on their behalf in both the private and public sectors.

In politics, the 2023 harmonised elections led to only 10% women directly elected as MPs and of those only 1% are young women.

In council, 11% women were directly elected as councillors and only 2% are young women.

This gender inequality can be traced back to patriarchal attitudes, lack of will by political parties to engender their constitutions, rules, regulations and manifestos, gaps in the Electoral Act through non-alignment with the Constitution and a volatile political environment marred by political violence against women, votebuying and a lack of resources to freely and adequately campaign.

Through the #ElectAYoungWoman campaign, Walpe and its consortium partners aim to increase the quality and number of young women who take up leadership positions at all levels.

Under the campaign, promising young women will be capacitated to take up leadership positions as well as to demand and access leadership positions and opportunities.

Walpe will be working with its network of women-led community-based organisations across the country to expand the campaign reach.

Objectives of the campaign

• To mobilise, organise, prepare and capacitate young women for leadership.

•To strengthen the capacity of young women to demand and access leadership and decision-making positions and opportunities.

•To address the pervasive stigma towards young women's fitness for leadership rooted in social norms, religious and traditional beliefs through improving public perception of young women as effective leaders and solution providers.

Expected outcomes

• Increased number and quality of young women participating in decision-making and taking-up leadership positions.

• Increased number of young women with a better understanding of, and sustained contribution to advancing gender equality reforms.

• Improved population's awareness of, and attitude towards the role of young women's leadership aptitude.

Target population for the campaign

The target groups for the campaign are young girls and women between the ages of 13 and 35 aspiring to be elected or appointed to leadership and decision-making positions such as school prefects, junior councillors and MPs, student representative councils, private and public sector boards, village and ward development committees, school development committees, health centre committees, councillors, MPs, ministers, etc.

The project will also engage six million Zimbabweans directly and indirectly through a mix of physical and social media engagements to support youth leadership.

Speaking at the campaign launch event, Walpe executive director Sitabile Dewa emphasised that young women have often being sidelined in the leadership and decision-making discourse despite constituting a large number of Zimbabwe's population.

The campaign is set to identify, coach, groom and mentor young women who want to take up and occupy leadership positions.

This campaign was in response to the low numbers of women and young women who occupied leadership positions following the August 23, 2023 harmonised elections.

It also seeks to create safe spaces for these young women to freely, actively and effectively take part in leadership processes.

There is less than 5% representation of young women in Parliament and council and this is sad considering that the country endorsed and adopted a Constitution which clearly outlines gender equality in all aspects of life.

Despite having a progressive Constitution, gender representation in leadership still falls short of the Sadc Declaration on Gender and Development, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Sustainable Development Goal 5, the Maputo Protocol and numerous other regional and international conventions and protocols Zimbabwe is party to.