The Zimbabwe National Gender Policy (NGP) 2013–2017 and Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE): a study of small-scale gold miners in the Bubi and Gwanda rural districts, Zimbabwe
- Authors: Moyo, Phoebe Michelle Zibusiso Sandi
- Date: 2024-04-03
- Subjects: Uncatalogued
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434638 , vital:73092 , DOI 10.21504/10962/434638
- Description: The study examines the impact of Zimbabwe’s second National Gender Policy (NGP) 2013-2017 under the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development on women’s access to and control over productive resources in the artisanal and small-scale gold mining sector in Bubi and Gwanda rural districts of Zimbabwe. Despite the implementation of the NGP over the past fourteen years, its effect on the economic empowerment of women has not been investigated adequately. Women’s economic empowerment (WEE) is recognized as a crucial development strategy. However, it faces challenges related to the tensions between structure and agency. Some perceive WEE as an entrepreneurial concept focusing on equal access and control over productive resources like credit, equipment, skills, and business training. Others argue that WEE should encompass more than just resource access and control by addressing structural factors that hinder women’s agency e.g. unequal social relations between men and women, patriarchy, unpaid care work, and sociocultural norms. The study employed a hybrid lens, combining structure and agency to analyse the implementation of the NGP’s empowerment programs. Drawing on Kabeer’s (1994) Social Relations Approach (SRA), the study utilized two key concepts from the SRA, namely social relations and institutional analysis, to examine the interaction between the NGP and various institutions (market, community, and family) where women are located. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the ways in which the NGP has supported or impeded WEE among the female small-scale gold miners in Bubi and Gwanda, a qualitative approach was employed as an investigative method. The findings indicated that the NGP adopts a liberal or agency centred approach to WEE. This approach emphasizes women’s agency and their ability to fulfil their potential in the public sphere. The NGP has facilitated access to credit, equipment, skills, and business training. However, the evidence also highlighted the uneven implementation of the NGP’s empowerment programs between the Bubi and Gwanda districts. Overall, the evidence revealed that, while the NGP has addressed gender inequalities to a limited degree, it has also reinforced class inequalities. The NGP’s empowerment programs have overlooked the structural factors that keep women in subordinate positions, such as the unequal social relations that exist between men and women, patriarchy, unpaid care work and sociocultural norms. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Sociology, 2024
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- Date Issued: 2024-04-03
An assessment of community participation in Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) development projects in Zimbabwe: the case of Bulilima and Mangwe Districts, Matabeleland South
- Authors: Moyo, Phoebe Michelle Zibusiso Sandi
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Political participation -- Zimbabwe , Community development -- Zimbabwe -- Citizen participation , Rural development projects -- Planning -- Citizen participation , Rural development -- Zimbabwe -- Citizen participation , Non-governmental organizations -- Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , M Soc Sc (Dev)
- Identifier: vital:11441 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1007232 , Political participation -- Zimbabwe , Community development -- Zimbabwe -- Citizen participation , Rural development projects -- Planning -- Citizen participation , Rural development -- Zimbabwe -- Citizen participation , Non-governmental organizations -- Zimbabwe
- Description: Since the mid 1970s there has been an increasing effort to adopt community participation as a necessary instrument for people driven development. NGOs and governments have come to use this participatory approach not only to empower local people, but also to give them a platform to plan and implement their own development projects. However in Zimbabwe, the government has failed to fund most projects and it has created a gap for NGOs to provide most, if not all services in rural communities. NGOs have been seen as better institutions to facilitate development projects and to engage local people to actively participate in development issues. Community participation is a central component in development projects as the projects respond to the people’s needs and that local people are in full control and ownership of these projects. This study is an assessment of community participation in NGO development projects in Zimbabwe. The study investigates the extent of community participation in development projects and it is guided by the Participatory Development (PD) theory. Research findings reveal that community participation is minimal in development projects of Bulilima and Mangwe districts in Zimbabwe. Local people are just passive participants of the development projects who are told what to do. The local people’s contributions and influences are sidelined in the planning and decision-making processes; instead these are made by the rural elite who plan and make decisions on behalf of the local people. It is the view of this study that the purpose of community participation is to create opportunities for local people to participate in planning, decision making, implementation, allocation and distribution of resources. The development projects should be responsive to the people’s needs. Similarly, participatory development just like community participation is a process whereby communities are given the opportunity to determine their future in terms of their needs and resources. In this regard, it is relevant that rural communities actively participate in planning, decision making, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development projects. By so doing, the projects become not only successful but also sustainable.
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- Date Issued: 2012