The Department for International Development (DFID), in partnership with UNICEF and the British Council held a shadow Disability Summit in Harare ahead of the Global Disability Summit to be held in London this July.
At the summit Ralph Watungwa, the Chief Executive Officer at Standard Chartered Bank Zimbabwe Limited, implored people to give tools to persons with disabilities and empower the self-determined.
Watungwa said that the empowerment of people with disabilities should go beyond the individual.
“The issue of empowerment starts with societal acceptance. It’s in how we give support to communities and parents of children with disabilities,” said Watungwa.
He added that there is need to invest in the amount of therapy that is given to mothers who deliver children with disabilities. It should not be assumed that siblings, guardians and relatives of people with disabilities will know how to cater for people with disabilities, he said.
The banker said that the way communities accept and live with people with disabilities has an influence on how prepared they are to take opportunities.
“There are many opportunities but these are taken by people who are best prepared for them. We need to encourage people with disabilities to work hard because the world is competitive,” Watungwa said.
Tsitsi Chataika, an educationist at the University of Zimbabwe and disability rights activist, said in 2015 the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education conducted a study that showed a lot of children are left out of the school system because of how schools are designed and because of attitudinal barriers in the communities they live in.
“The notion of inclusive education is not just about people with disabilities but it is about everyone. People with disabilities are denied access to education and are told to get special education. Education is a right, people with disabilities deserve to enjoy that right too,” Chataika said.
She added that people should dispel the notion that persons with disabilities do not need an education. Disability and poverty are related and the first port of call in eradicating poverty is equal access to education.
The advisor to the President on National Disability, Joshua Malinga, said that people with disability need to know that they have to liberate themselves.
Malinga added that his generation fought for the Disability Act and did not get it on a platter.
“In order for the disability movement to take place people with disabilities need to initiate it. The movement is very divided right now but there is need for political will and people who want to proffer solutions.
Advisor Malinga asserted that there is need for a grassroots based, democratic and nationwide disability movement that communicates, writes reports and shares information widely. He said in support of this he will ensure that there is a Disability Act by the end of the year.
NANGO stands in solidarity with its members that have issued statements condemning the government’s arbitrary decision to dismiss all striking nurses from their positions at state-run hospitals.
On Tuesday 17 April 2018 the Vice President, Retired General Constantino Chiwenga, fired nurses employed at state-run hospitals that had been protesting against poor salaries and unfavourable working conditions. He accused the disgruntled government employees of being influenced by political motives. Vice President Rtd. Gen. Chiwenga made the statement in his capacity as the Supervisor of the Social Services Cluster.
In their statements members remind the government that it has a responsibility to ensure that citizen’s rights to heath care is not compromised and should immediately implement measures to resolve the situation at state-run hospitals.
The three organisations assert that they stand in solidarity with the dismissed workers and hold government accountable for the blatant breach of the health workers’ fundamental rights and the Zimbabwean Constitution as well as any consequences that will arise from staff shortages at health institutions.
NANGO members expressed that the decision to dismiss the nurses is an unfair labour practice in a country that is a signatory to the International Labour Organisation Statutes and Labour Rights. They also call upon the government to reverse this unfortunate decision as it militates against the fundamental rights of citizens and has a grave effect on the health delivery system.
NANGO condemns the dismissal as it exacerbates health practitioners’ mass exodus to neighbouring countries in search for greener pastures. More so, it contravenes section 65 of the Constitution which, among others, guarantees labour rights to every person except members of the security services.
The Zimbabwean Constitution in Section 65 (2) provides as follows “Except for members of the security services, every person has the right to form and join trade unions and employee and employers’ organisations of their choice and to participate in the lawful activities of those unions and organisations”.
It is at this backdrop that NANGO concurs with its members in demanding urgent attention towards concerns raised by nurses, calling on the government to uphold the constitution and rescind its decision, review the Health Services Act, develop level benchmarks of service and accountability as well as increase funding allocated to the health sector and strive to allocate 15% to health as stipulated in the Abuja Declaration. NANGO also supports the numerous peaceful initiatives that have come up around the country in solidarity with nurses.
Masvingo NGOs have said that funding challenges will not break their will power to deliver progress and development in the province.
This came out at a membership meeting that was held in Masvingo where NANGO Executive Director, Leonard Mandishara, met the NANGO Southern Region Board and member organisations.
The meeting was aimed at scanning the Masvingo Province NGO sector operating environment, challenges and strategies on how to forge ahead.
Some of the NANGO members said the changed environment in terms of governance also presents unique challenges that most organisations are grappling to deal with.
The province is gearing for elections and part of the development programmes involve strategies on the engagement of various stakeholder who play a critical role in the delivery of free, fair and credible elections.
Along with issues affecting civil society, it was brought out that the surge in murder and rape cases needs be addressed by community leaders and the police. The NGO sector pledged to raise awareness and lobby for retention safe spaces.
The Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, Petronella Kagonye, has said the country’s current legislation is sufficient for curbing child marriages.
“The current legislation is sufficient for persecuting those that breach children’s rights. We are currently reviewing the Child Act and the Marriage Act and we cannot not rush the process. The aim is to have a quality product that we can stand by and take pride in,” said Minister Kagonye.
Minister Kagonye made these assertions at the Zimbabwe National Council for the Welfare of Children’s 50TH anniversary celebrations in response to journalists that had asked what the ministry is doing with regards to rampant child marriages, child trafficking and child labour.
The minister added that her office realises that poverty is the major driver of child marriages and child labour therefore efforts are being made to help parents keep children in school.
“Poverty is the major driver of various forms of abuse. To reduce child labour we encourage parents to keep children in school and we ensure this through the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM),” added Minister Kagonye.
Regarding child trafficking the minister said stern measures are being taken towards ensuring that no unaccompanied children leave the country.
“We are working with our South African counterparts to reduce such cases. Last month eight children were brought back and on 19 April we expect six more children. These are children who go to South Africa to visit their parents but do not have proper documentation some are unaccompanied because their parents cannot make time or their guardians cannot afford to”, asserted Kagonye.
Children with disabilities are also on the radar of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare. There is the Disability Fund funded by the treasury to assist people with disabilities and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has five million dollars for people with disabilities. The challenge is that there are limitations to accessing money in the RBZ coffers. There are certain banks and conditions that people with disabilities have to comply to in order to access the money. Due to this, the ministry is making attempts for the money to be transferred to the ministry as it already has mechanisms in place to guarantee that supposed beneficiaries can access funds.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Financial Intelligence Unit Deputy Director, Oliver Chiperesa, has said that government will employ monitoring mechanisms to ensure that Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) do not fund terrorist activities.
The deputy director said this at an awareness workshop for NGOs on terrorist financing and vulnerability of Non-Profit Organisations sector that was held by the Financial Intelligence Unit in Harare.
Chiperesa said, “We have identified what makes NGOs vulnerable to funding terrorism and now the RBZ wants to make it harder to fund terrorist activities. We need to identify specific risks that face the NGO sector and how to mitigate against them.”
The deputy director added that there is need to take stock of all NGOs in the country, what programs they implement and where their funding comes from. He said this will assist in identifying organisations that are at greatest risk and putting additional measures to ensure that there is no opportunity for them to knowing or unknowingly fund terrorism.
NGO leaders and finance personnel expressed concern questioning if in Zimbabwe terrorism is a threat that warrants this level of alarm by the Central Bank.
Edson Chihota, the Director of Zimbabwe Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender (ZACRO) commented on how the government’s interests into the work of NGOs is rising at a time when organisations’ programming is centred around elections. Chihota asked if there are any Zimbabwean organisations that have funded terrorism therefore warranting this exercise.
In response Chiperesa said that the awareness workshops have been on going as the unit has met with business people and legal practitioners. He said the unit was proactive and needed not to wait for terrorism to occur in Zimbabwe. He also said that the Financial Action Task Force has been in place for years and tightened reigns after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States of America.
NANGO Northern Region Coordinator, Charity Musiiwa, asked if the Financial Intelligence Unit was guided by any research that gives basis for RBZ’s mitigation mechanisms.
The deputy director responded by saying the Best Practice Paper on Combating Terrorist Financing in the NPO Sector and another paper titled Risk of Terrorist Abuse in NPOs are among many researches that the Financial Intelligence Unit can share with civil society. He also said there are some case studies of Pakistan and Iraq.
Tafirenyika Mugomba who is the Zimbabwe Aids Network Finance and Administration Manager, expressed that the processes outlined by the Unit mostly affect the banking sector as NGOs submit their annual returns to the parent Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare a mechanism already in place to monitor NGOs.
RBZ officials announced that they will be circulating a risk assessment questionnaire to all NGOs as a way of collecting data and assessing the level of vulnerability.
The Financial Intelligence Unit is the main Anti-Money Laundering/ Combating the Financing Terrorism (AML/CFT) regulator, but works in close cooperation with the supervisory and regulatory bodies of the various types of designated reporting institutions to ensure that the regulated entities comply with their AML/CFT obligations.
The RBZ Financial Intelligence Unit is guided by the Financial Action Task Force Recommendations that are internationally endorsed global standards against money laundering and terrorist financing. They increase transparency and enable countries to successfully take action against illicit use of their financial system.
The magazine is an annual publication focusing on the education sector in Zimbabwe. It is set out to inform, educate and stimulate discussion on current topics on the state of education and literacy in the country. The content of the publication is suitable for all reading ages ensuring pupils, parents and all concerned get the advice, information and clarifications on aspects of the system from ECD to University level education.
Dzidzo muZimbabwe invites organisations to provide articles, stories or reports on their work in promoting education in Zimbabwe and Africa. Our vision is to ensure all citizens of Zimbabwe have the information at hand to help them make choices for the education of their children, dependents and themselves. The right choice is to acquire education for a better future for all regardless of age, sex, race or physical status.
Copies available from Formvill Pvt Ltd and various retail outlets including Bon Marche Belgravia and Spar Montague Avenue. Contact Dave – 0775566383
An agreement was reached that independent commissions should work with the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) so that they can leverage on the presence of CSOs in local communities including hard to reach and marginalised communities. This was reached at a knowledge exchange seminar for civil society and independent commissions that was held at Monomotapa Hotel.
With regards to rapport between commissions and civil society, the meeting concurred that regular meetings should be held between independent commissions and CSOs in order to give updates on progress made and to identify areas of collaboration. Civil society needs to build a directory for the independent commissions so that they have information on who to work with for different programmes.
Organisations that attended the meeting appreciated that independent commissions need to work together in order to strengthen their voice and lobby for adequate financing from the government. In relation to the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission in particular, there is need for other commissions and civil society to support the commission since it cannot achieve its mandate on its own.
It was also highlighted that independent commissions need to engage the private sector to create partnerships as a way of resources mobilisation.
In their presentations the commissioners indicated that common challenges that are being faced across all the commissions include lack of resources to fully deliver their mandate, inadequate staff to carry out day to day activities and poor accessibility by the public due to lack of presence in local communities.
The seminar delved on areas of engagement for increasing the capacity, visibility and impact of the various actors before, during and after the 2018 elections. There was particular emphasis on the need to lobby for the amendment of the electoral laws before the proclamation of the 2018 elections, the need to identify and act on threats of political violence before it fully erupts and the need to have an agreed position as civil society and independent commissions on what constitutes a free and fair election and be able to act before the results are announced.
The objectives of the seminar were to provide independent commissions and CSOs in Zimbabwe, a platform to share experiences, challenges, applied strategies and lessons learnt in striving to implement their respective mandate, to discuss and come up with strategies for continued collaboration among different actors in dispensing their respective mandates and filling the existing gaps and to produce a framework for CSO engagement with independent commissions in different sectors.
Out of the five commissions in Zimbabwe three managed to attend the seminar. These were Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, Zimbabwe Gender Commission and National Peace and Reconciliation Commission. The meeting was coordinated by Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, Zimbabwe Human Rights Association and Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission.
NANGO invited its members to attend a meeting aimed at raising awareness on Anti Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) organised by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) at the RBZ Sports Club on 5 April 2018.
The meeting has been necessitated by government efforts, led by RBZ Financial Intelligence Unit and Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare to ensure that non-profit making organisations are not used to raise, move or store funds which will be used to commit terrorist activities, or be used for recruiting or training foreign terrorist fighters.
The inter-governmental body called the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) noted that the NGO sector is vulnerable to abuse by terrorist organisations to raise and move funds, provide logistical support, encourage terrorist recruitment or otherwise support.
A guiding document, Recommendations 8: Non-Profit Organisations of FATFs 40 states that countries should review the adequacy of laws and regulations that relate to Non-Profit Organisations which the country has identified as being vulnerable to terrorists financing abuse. Countries should apply focused and proportionate measures, in line with the risk based approach, to such NPOs to protect them from terrorist financing abuse, including terrorist organisations posing as legitimate entities; exploiting legitimate entities as conduits for terrorist financing, including for the purpose of escaping asset-freezing measures; and concealing or obscuring the clandestine diversion of funds intended for legitimate purposes to terrorist organisations.
Zimbabwe has not made significant strides on complying with provisions of recommendation 8: Non-Profit Organisations of FATF’s 40 Recommendations. Due to this, over 20 organisations are invited to a platform where RBZ will give an overview of the Bank Use Promotion and Suppression of Money Laundering Unit, the roles they are playing together with the Ministry of Labour and Social Services. At this meeting RBZ will highlight the vulnerability of the NGO sector to terrorist financing risks and preventative measures that should be put in place.
The Young Change Makers falls under the Advocacy and Campaigns Program whose goal is to improve the living conditions of children with disabilities in Zimbabwe. The project, run by Leonard Cheshire Disability Zimbabwe, is partnering with disability service organizations in order to support 200 children with disabilities as young leaders to participate in processes where they can raise awareness of their rights and responsibilities.
As part of efforts to foster child led advocacy the project held a post budget analysis seminar whose objective was to help learners understand their role in advocating for child friendly budgets. The seminar brought together representatives of Young Change Makers clubs from two schools that the project is partnering with in Harare.
At the seminar, NANGO Senior Social Policy Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Onias Munamati, spoke about child sensitive budgeting.
Munamati said, “The National Budget is a key instrument to ensure the progressive realisation of the social, environmental, economic and political rights of children as a disenfranchised group. Every child should have adequate standard of living and have the highest attainable standard of health and education on the basis of equality and opportunity. The fulfillment of these child rights involves costs and resources.”
Ideally elements of child friendly budgeting are child-friendly economic and social policies, transparent, accountable and participatory budget process, efficient and equitable budget allocations and expenditure as well as adequate and progressively increasing budget allocations, asserted Munamati.
He added that, to influence the 2018 National Budget, Junior Councilors developed their 2018 budget advocacy tool, the Children’s Ten Point Plan, which was used to engage the fiscal authorities. For inclusivity, a separate process comprised of Children with Disabilities was organised to gather their budget aspirations hence the development of Children’s Ten Point Plan Plus.
2018 National Budget Response to the Children’s Ten Point Plan Plus was allocation of $1 million for the provision of technical and vocational skills to Persons With Disabilities (PWD). The government allocated $5.7million towards the procurement of hearing aids and braille support services to learners with visual impairment. Commitment was also made to support sign language and braille teaching and learning resource materials.
The government also committed to support children with disabilities with psychological services and school feeding programmes. In terms of social security, $39.3 million was allocated towards funding existing social safety nets.
Leonard Cheshire Disability Zimbabwe held the seminar after appreciating the need to lobby for development of child sensitive fiscal and budget policies and expenditures, evidence based child budget advocacy, hold the government to account on the promises made to children, enhance the effectiveness of the national budgets in addressing the development needs of children and reprioritization of expenditure to the critical areas which are important in achieving sustainable development.
Leonard Cheshire Disability Zimbabwe is a non-profit organization striving for creation of equal opportunities for people with a disability. It has been operating in Zimbabwe since 1981 and envisions a society in which every person with a disability can enjoy their rights and have the opportunity to fulfil their potential. It also works with grassroots communities in all ten provinces of Zimbabwe and strives to address the issues of discrimination, exclusion, poverty and rights violation among people with disability (PWD) through various program strategies.
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) that met with the SADC Electoral Advisory Council (SEAC) on Friday last week at the Rainbow Towers expressed lack of confidence in the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).
Zimbabwe Association of Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender (ZACRO) director, Edson Chihota, passed a complaint over how ZEC prescribes the role that CSOs should play during elections. He said such interference erodes confidence of the electorate.
An attendant at the meeting asked the council to evaluate the efficiency of ZEC stating that 112 political parties are alleged to have registered to run in the forthcoming elections yet it is very questionable if ZEC will manage to handle the numbers and still guarantee credible elections.
In response to concerns raised over the capabilities of ZEC, SEAC chairperson, Advocate Leshele Thohlane, said “We have met ZEC and they told us their structures, processes and limitations. What we have also been made aware of how the voters’ roll is contentious.”
Advocate Thohlane added that in spite of all this, they wanted to know the role that civil society is playing towards nation building.
The Pre-election Goodwill Mission acknowledged that civil society feels a vacuum with regards to ensuring accountability of democratic processes.
He added that SEAC serves to assess the readiness of a country expected to hold elections and submits a report to SADC as it is the role of the council to ensure free and fair elections.
SEAC has the mandate of establishing whether socio-economic and political environment is conducive for holding elections. To fulfil this mandate Advocate Thohlane said they sit and listen to civil society as these are the foot soldiers documenting processes.