adminDaisy Jeremani Gender Editor
The government has been called upon to step up its empowerment programmes for women through the Women’s Development Fund, after the line minister disclosed that a mere $2,8 million has been forwarded towards the facility in the last five years. In a reaction to a speech by the Acting Minister of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development, Cde Chris Mushohwe at the launch of the International Women’s Day in Harare recently, women said more should be done by government to ensure that they participate fully in economic activities.
Cde Mushohwe said his ministry coordinates and capacitates communities through the Women’s Development Fund, but unfortunately it was not adequately resourced from the fiscus.
Introduced in 2010, the Women’s Development Fund is administered through POSB. It is meant to address the lack of collateral among women and ensures women avoid the high interest rates charged by commercial banks. Besides the fund the ministry also coordinates and capacitates communities to form internal savings and landing schemes. Since last year 8,604 women and 1,784 men were trained in internal saving and lending countrywide.
“Despite all these initiatives the Women’s Development Fund is not adequately resourced from the fiscus to cover all the submitted requests from women,” the minister said.
“Secondly the repayment rates by women are low.”
In response, Women Trust interim director, Luta Shaba said it was high time politicians walked their talk in making sure that women’s programmes are capacitated to empower them.
“It’s tragic that during election time politicians promise women all sorts of empowerment programmes, but when they are in office they forget their biggest constituency,” she said.
Women make up 52 percent of the country’s population.
She said the ministry should also be proactive during budget consultations and lobby for gender sensitive budgets and policies.
Such policies will promote development, which in turn will reduce poverty and improve the welfare of women and girls.
The minister said the $2,8 million was disbursed to 1,854 women’s group in the country through their provincial offices.
An official from a leading women’s group who did not want to be identified said, said $2,8 million in five years would not make a meaningful impact on women’s development in the country.
Women have also been blamed for exacerbating the problem due to their failure to pay back money from the fund.
An official from the ministry’s Bulawayo office recently confirmed the failure by women to repay loans, saying this had also impacted negatively on the revolving fund.
Ntando Mhanga, the acting provincial development officer for Bulawayo province said “… I urge you to be honest citizens and pay back loans that are advanced to you so that other women can benefit.”
Online Reporter