  Periodic stakeholder engagement meetings held during the course of the electoral process with key stakeholders. Enter into Memoranda of Understanding with identified stakeholders for strategic joint initiatives, and implementation of identified programmes and projects around human rights and elections 4.2. Implementation of the Elections Strategic Plan: The Human Rights-Based Approach to Programming The ZHRC will adopt a human right based approach to programming around the elections strategy. The approach is designed to empower the citizens to know and claim their rights during elections and increasing the ability and accountability of individuals and institutions who are responsible for respecting, protecting and fulfilling rights during the election period. This will mean giving people greater opportunities to participate in shaping the decisions that impact on their human rights during the election period. It also means increasing the ability of those with responsibility for fulfilling rights during the election period to recognise and know how to respect those rights, and make sure they can be held to account. The strategy will ensure that both the standards and the principles of human rights are integrated into election programming and the following underlying principles which are of fundamental importance in applying a human right based approach in practice are applied:      Participation Accountability non-discrimination and equality empowerment and legality. Cross cutting Issues The Commission has adopted gender mainstreaming as a strategy towards realising gender equality. The election strategy will use the Gender Mainstreaming strategy to infuse and integrate gender within all its activities and programmes. This will entail the integration of a gender perspective into the preparation, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the election strategy with a view to promoting equality between women and men, and combating discrimination during the election period. As a Party to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CPRD), Zimbabwe has an obligation under Article 29, “to ensure that persons with disabilities can effectively and fully participate in political and public life on an equal basis with others, directly or through freely chosen representatives, including the right and opportunity for persons with disabilities to vote and be elected, inter alia,”15 thus the Commission will ensure that in the implementation of the strategy rights of rights of people with disabilities (PWDs) are recognised and implemented on an equal basis with others. 15 http://www.un.org/disabilities/documents/convention/convoptprot-e.pdf accessed 6 December 2017 22 | P a g e