An Analysis of Gender Policies In Water Supply And Sanitation Sector In Zimbabwe

This project was funded under the Water Research Fund for Southern Africa seeking to contribute towards improving the welfare of poor rural and urban households through gender mainstreaming at all levels in water and sanitation sector by analysing gender policies at the international, national, organisational, community and project levels. The purpose of the legal framework was to transform policy intentions into legally binding and enforceable clauses.

A survey conducted revealed the following:

• International organisations including United Nations and donor agencies had made significant progress in mainstreaming gender in their policies and practices.
• At the national level, Zimbabwe had made significant progress in translating international gender policies into national policies. The government set national machinery in the form of Gender Issues Unit in the Ministry of National Affairs Employment Creation and Cooperatives and the Department of Gender Issues in the Office of the President and Cabinet to spearhead the incorporation of gender issues in development.
• At institutional level, gender was not being given enough attention. Government departments, which were involved in the water and sanitation sector, did not have gender mainstreaming policies. The National Action Committee, which coordinated rural water and sanitation programmes, did not itself have a gender mainstreaming policy.

Project findings revealed that although women had been recognized as the primary actors and managers in activities related to water supply and sanitation, gender aspects were often overlooked in policy making, technology design and project implementation.

The project saw the birth or promotion of a number of approaches that included the demand responsive and gender sensitive approaches and it also developed tools that could be used to address gender issues (especially strategic gender needs) at project and policy levels, especially in view of the fact that similar projects had focused on addressing practical as opposed to strategic gender needs.

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