Zimbabwe working to align gender equality framework with SADC protocol

By Wallace Mawire [caption id="attachment_37065" align="alignleft" width="300"] Nyasha Chikwinya, Minister of Women Affairs, Gender and Community
Development[/caption] Zimbabwe has been facing a major hurdle of lack of appropriate tools to track gender equality status and is in the process of finalising the monitoring and evaluation framework for gender equality and women empowerment. Nyasha Chikwinya, Minister of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development said the framework will provide a monitoring and tracking system for gender equality and women empowerment. "This framework will be aligned to the monitoring, evaluation and reporting framework of the SADC protocol on Gender and Development," Chikwinya said. The government of Zimbabwe is also working on engendering the realignment of laws to the constitution. The Alliance of Civil Society Organisations produces the SADC Gender protocol barometer which has acted as a yardstick allowing member states to track progress in the implementation of the SADC protocol on Gender and Development. The barometer indicates that Zimbabwe has recorded a 70% rating on gender equality against the regional score of 69%. The barometer also indicates that the region's citizens rated governments performance on gender equality at 69%, Zimbabwe scoring 71%.