Phyllis Kachere
Communal women farmers last week told the Parliamentary portfolio committee on Agriculture, Land, Water and Resettlement that the structure of the ward development committee (wadco) should be revised in order to ensure their participation at decisionmaking levels that affects their wellbeing as farmers.

Speaking at a joint advocacy meeting organised by the Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN) and its partners, the women farmers said the ward development committee was made up of the village development structures chaired by the village head and consists of a women representative, a youths representative and a secretary.

“The ward development committee leaves out the women representative and ensures that only village heads become its members.
“The women representatives are never found in the wadco and yet this is where all the decisions affecting the village and themselves are made,” said Mrs Girly Shumba from Chiwundura in Gweru.

The women farmers were drawn from the beneficiaries of the Women and Land Rights project from Bubi, Chinhoyi, Wedza, Makoni and Makonde districts.
The Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Mr Seiso Moyo, and Members of Parliament from the Parliamentary Portfolio Committees on Agriculture, Water, Land, Resettlement and Women, Youth, Gender and Community Development also participated.

The ZWRCN has been jointly implementing a four-year Women and Land Rights Project with Action Aid International Zimbabwe Women and Land in Zimbabwe Women, Land and Water Rights in Southern Africa and the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe.
ZWRCN executive director Mrs Naomi Chimbetete told the women farmers and the Parliamentarians that:

“The development objective of the project is to increase poor women’s access and control over land ownership in Zimbabwe as a means to improving their livelihoods and those of their families.
“The project’s objectives are premised on the need for the Zimbabwe Government to meet the requirements of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in particular poverty eradication empowering women and ensuring gender equality and combating HIV and Aids.

“The project intended beneficiaries are resource-poor women, land beneficiaries under the A1 model, financially resourced women farmers who lack human and social capital and resource-poor displaced women farm workers, child-headed households and people living with HIV and Aids seeking to acquire land in selected districts.”

The lobbying for increased representation of women in decision-making structures has led to revival of women farmer structures and leadership, like the Rural Women’s Assembly, initiated by Action Aid in 2009.