Women, too, play a big part Honourable Minister

the members of the august House present.
Ministry of Energy and Power Development
With the aid of a Powerpoint presentation, the minister used a number of visuals to emphasise his proposals, a culture introduced by Dr Gideon Gono during the presentation of his monetary policies.
One of his pictures which attracted interjections for more than five minutes was the picture of women bearing enormous loads of firewood on their heads, depicting the plight of women who have to travel long distances in search of the almost extinct firewood.
While the origins of that picture can be debatable, the fact that energy and power challenges in Zimbabwe have reached peak levels with women bearing the brunt cannot be wished away.
Minister Biti may have borrowed a picture from a setting outside Harare, simply because local photographers do not think it is newsworthy to show pictures of Zimbabwean women carrying heavy loads of firewood over long distances.
The reason being that fetching water and firewood for domestic purposes is one of the numerous but supposedly “normal” gender roles ascribed to women in the Zimbabwean society.
However, the use of that picture by Minister Biti was spot on, in terms of pointing out that women are the worst affected by energy and power challenges in Zimbabwe.
Treasury’s response to these challenges includes a US$30 million allocation for rehabilitation and maintenance of Hwange Power Station; U$3 million for Kariba Power Station and US$7,5 million towards the maintenance of the network system.
A total of US$7 million was allocated towards the Rural Electrification Agency while US$31 000 was set aside for coal bed methane and US$5 000 for greenfield project feasibility
Although everyone is affected by the power outages, the impact could have a gender dimension. Women and the girl child, who have to source firewood as alternative sources, mostly bear the brunt more compared to men.
Therefore any measures designed to address this problem would bring more positive results to women than men.
While the allocation of resources towards the rehabilitation and maintenance of existing generation plants would lessen power outages, even when fully rehabilitated, the generation capacity cannot meet demand.
As long as the Budget is not improving the generation capacity of existing plants or building new ones, then the problem is likely to continue.
Capacitating REA to connect more rural areas to the national grid is commendable.
However, out of the US$7 million provided for REA, only US$4 million is intended for grid extension.
This therefore implies that not many rural areas are going to be covered to have a significant impact on the girl child and women. Investment in alternative sources such as solar and coal bed methane gas is therefore commendable.
Although the 2011 Budget provided for funding for wood stove improvement, nothing is provided for in the 2012 Budget.
More efficient wood stoves also reduce the amount of wood required, which also serves to ease the girl child and women’s burden.
In addition, although the 2011 Budget had provided for US$29 000 for this cause, only a paltry US$6 249 was disbursed.
The discontinuation of the wood stove improvement programme is a double blow for women and the girl child, who also could not benefit fully from the resources provided for in 2011.
Any efforts to improve on the energy and power delivery should also consider the cost at which this would be delivered to women and the girl children.
At the moment many households are struggling to clear their debts with the national power utility (Zesa) and the tariffs have been reviewed by a whopping 31 percent despite calls by city residents on Zesa to write off the amounts owing.
Women’s purchasing power remains very minimal given their current state of economic (dis) empowerment.
Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises and Co-operative Development
In his speech to Parliament, Minister Biti acknowledged that that close to 60 percent of growth worldwide is generated by small and medium enterprises while about 47 percent of the economically active population in Zimbabwe’s urban areas derive their income from self-employment.
However, he forgot to mention that women constitute the majority of traders in this sector, particularly informal cross-border trade.
The minister also omitted the new tide of network marketing of health products, cosmetics and various accessories that has gripped the cities.
The minister also mentioned that SMEs continue to face challenges ranging from limited access to capital, high interest rates in the money market, skills shortage and lack of proper infrastructure, among others.
However, the Budget statement proposes that “support for SMEs be complemented by assistance from development partners, such as the ongoing partnership with India on capacitating SMEs through retooling, training and infrastructure provision”.
The challenge with foreign partnerships is that Government does not have control over the priorities of those assisting and the needs of the SME players may not be addressed adequately.
The US$6 million allocation towards programmes in support of SMEs and the IDBZ US$30 million (US$15 million on lending) facility in support of the operation of SMEs in manufacturing, mining, agriculture and other sectors do not disaggregate beneficiaries by gender.
If there are no mechanisms to ensure that these resources are distributed equitably then the women are likely to be disadvantaged considering the existing gender disparities in the economy.
A 30 percent quota could be set aside for women to access the above-mentioned facilities.
It remains to be explained why the SME ministry does not have a specific gender mainstreaming budget line.
l Next week, we bring you a snapshot of the gender analysis of the 2012 Tourism Ministry and the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development Budget allocation.