CDF can empower women

Masvingo residents urged Finance Minister Tendai Biti to scrap the CDF completely following reports of gross corruption.
It is unfortunate that reports of abuse of funds intended to benefit residents have resulted in so much disillusionment to the point where people are calling for it to be scrapped.
The CDF is a fund allocated annually to all constituencies under the control of Members of Parliament.
It is intended to enable constituencies to function as development units and aid in the implementation of community based projects.
Such local level investments into development infrastructure and projects have been especially beneficial to women and girls.
Since its inception in 2010, the CDF concept has been a bone of contention and allegations raise the question whether or not the fund should be maintained.
Last week, Mr Biti announced that he had stopped disbursement of the US$5 million CDF until after next year’s elections.
He reasons that since there is less than six months before the current Parliament is dissolved, disbursing the funds now could lead to a spending spree by some lawmakers who may not retain their seats.
Secondly, a tough new law is currently being crafted to prevent abuse of the fund by MPs.
Talk about putting the cart before the horse, perhaps this is something that should have been thought of in 2010 because if this had been done, there would be no need to stop funds from going to the people.
Nonetheless, while all this makes sense, the CDF money will hopefully still be budgeted for.
If the existing gaps are fixed, the CDF has so much potential to improve the livelihoods and welfare of women and girls in the Zimbabwean society and can also provide opportunities for them to participate more visibly in local development processes.
The CDF is part of the gender budgeting consciousness that if managed well can reduce gender inequality.
It can potentially reduce poverty among the most needy and vulnerable (women), and change their status in society through increased participation in project identification, implementation, location, and monitoring.
The major aim of the CDF is that local input will promote meaningful participation of residents in their own development.
An important dimension is the aspect of public consultations and empowerment of women to take part in constituency planning.
Notably, they would ensure that community development priorities hinge on critical projects in the gamut of getting water, food and fuel into homes as the most pressing needs.
While a new Bill to safeguard the CDF is currently being drafted, it is essential for the ministry to do its homework and put all necessary checks in place, including making consultations and referring to international best practices.
It would also be critical to take a leaf from other countries on how they are ring fencing their funds.
Last year, the Centre for International Development and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association facilitated a roundtable and workshop on constituency development funds in which unfortunately Zimbabwe was not represented.
However, the workshop came up with principles and guidelines, which could be very useful to solving some of our headaches.
Among other things, the principles recommend that no such funds should ever be deposited into the personal accounts of MPs but rather the constituency account.
This is really a no-brainer and should have been quite obvious in the beginning.
It should also be mandatory for MPs to work with CDF committees chosen by the constituencies, to increase accountability.
Perhaps another recommendation can be to have more women MPs. One would hasten to say that indeed, having more women MPs will not necessarily guarantee or automatically translate to pro-poor or pro-women development, but women tend to have a unique perspective of problems and a great aptitude for innovative solutions.
Some few empirical studies conducted in the last decade indicate that women tend to be less likely to be corrupt with public resources compared to their male counterparts.
Some may doubt this stereotype, but other societies have begun to see the promotion of women in public life as a potentially effective anti-corruption strategy.
An influential 1999 World Bank study of 150 countries in Europe, Africa and Asia, for example, came to the conclusion that women are more trustworthy and less prone to corruption.
This finding was corroborated by Transparency International, which established a link between higher representation of women in Government and lower levels of corruption. 
In Zimbabwe, we have a shining example in the case of the Harare West Constituency Development Committee led by Deputy Minister of Gender and Women’s Affairs Jessie Majome.
Through the CDF, the MP facilitated renovations of dilapidated public toilets and drilling of boreholes to supplement water supplies and other critical interventions in Mabelreign and Ashdown Park.
The CDF should certainly stay and will hopefully be re-introduced after the anticipated elections.
Beneficiaries of the CDF, who are the people in the constituencies, can really do with those funds particularly in these trying times.

Natasha Msonza is a Communication Strategist and Information Officer at the Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre &Network (ZWRCN). Feedback on telephone 252388/90 or Email: [email protected]. Follow on Twitter: @zwrcnwomen