WiPSU provides support to women in elected public and political office and aims to increase women’s participation and influence in policy and decision making. WiPSU seeks to fulfil its vision which is “A society in which women exercise and enjoy their human rights and participate as equals in all political processes in full citizenship rights.” WiPSU is an organisation that exists to strengthen the democracy and governance practises in Zimbabwe through the effective participation of women in all elected political offices and as political constituents.
Read moreThe Empowerment and Capacity Building are key engagements undertaken by WIPSU to provide direct support for women in elected public office through various capacity enhancement workshops and strengthening women’s leadership skills in a broad range of sectorial spaces. This programme also supports aspiring candidates through training and support which is extended to even aspiring young women.
This programme seeks to support women in the wards and constituencies that they lead. This is done through the formulation of working groups called Constituency Consultative Forums (CCF) that work with female MP’s at a constituency level and Ward Consultative Forums (WCF) that work with Councillors at Ward level. The two structures the CCF and the WCF are community development structures supporting the local leader. These communities are capacitated on how they can fully support the female leaders so as to achieve developmental targets in their respective areas. We also conduct Community Dialogue meetings where leaders and communities interface with an aim of highlighting issues of concern in the community. The dialogues are for tracking purposes made e.g. Councillor or Local Authorities. Women are therefore capacitated with knowledge and skills so that they can advocate for women’s rights.
This program aims to facilitate an enabling environment for women’s rights to participate in politics and in the development agenda. WiPSU flagship being the 50-50, Vote for a Women Campaign in which we have trying to put pressure on political parties to ensure 50% representation of women in Parliament. In addition to this the program aims to package the information to disseminate pertinent information and topical issues to strengthen the knowledge base of women. These issues are simplified versions on constitutional literacy and electoral documents such as the electoral act.
Monitoring and Evaluating our engagements and those of women in political engagement in Zimbabwe is a critical aspect of our work as it guide lessons learnt, what works and what doesn’t work, providing information on political and policy trends that impact on women representation and participation for the betterment of women. The programme provides quantitative and qualitative analysis so that WiPSU continues to remodel its programmes as it goes through learning to continuously respond to the changing context in which it exists.