Research & Advocacy Unit (RAU)
7, Sudbury Avenue, Monavale, Harare,
Zimbabwe
Email: admin@rau.co.zw
Phone: +263 (4) 302 764
Mobile: +263 772 353 975
URL: www.researchandadvocacyunit.org
Policy Brief No.2/17
Increasing women’s political participation
Executive Summary
New research by the Research & Advocacy Unit documents the experiences of
women legislators under proportional representation and the perceptions other
MPs have on the special measure to increase women representation.1 This
report explores what challenges and opportunities the current MPs under PR
have and what the next steps should be after the expiry of Section 124 in 2023.
Learning from the shortcomings of the current quota system, the report further
seeks to explore how women should utilise the current quota and what is the
strategy beyond 2023 to ensure that gender parity is realised.
Introduction
It is fact that most male-dominated political and government institutions advance the interests of
men rather than those of women and thus compromise on their needs and aspirations. Prior to
2013, Zimbabwe had a largely ad hoc approach to the issue of female representation. It was
mostly driven by moral considerations within political parties in response to the pressures
applied by the women’s constituency within those parties.
This pressure was given added impetus by Zimbabwe’s participation in the Beijing Conference
in 1995, leading to considerable pressure being mounted during the constitutional process in the
late 1990s for greater enforcement of women’s rights. This was aborted when the constitution
was rejected in the 2000 referendum, but most of the concerns were revived in the constitutional
process from 2009 to 2013, and have been included in the amended 2013 Constitution.
Section 17(1)(b)(ii) of Zimbabwe’s new Constitution that came into effect in 2013 states that:
“The State must promote full gender balance in Zimbabwean society and in particular …must…
take all measures including legislative measures needed to ensure women constitute at least half
1
RAU (2016), Participation but no Voice: A Preliminary Report on Proportional Representation in Zimbabwe’s
Legislature. December 2016. Harare : Research & Advocacy Unit.