Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA) and Women’s Academy for Leadership and Political Excellence (WALPE) have partnered to empower women in Mashonaland East and Harare province to enable to positively participate in politics for nation building.
The project, dubbed “Women empowered for participation in Electoral Processes Project (WEPEP)” will benefit women from Murewa, Marondera, Hwedza and Epworth Districts.
According to WLSA , “the responsibility of political parties is to guarantee fair play for women during these internal electoral processes, if the primary elections are not held in a free, fair and transparent manner, it is mainly female candidates who lose out,” the organisation said.
WLSA called for a women’s cross political structure/ caucus to meet regularly and discuss their political participation.
“WLSA and WALPE agreed that they will engage political parties to influence reform of political party constitutions and policies towards gender parity in outcomes and establish a baseline on status of gender equality within political parties.
“WLSA also highlighted that political parties lack adequate resources to support female candidates to contest in elections, these challenges ultimately affect efforts to promote gender equality and balance in national leadership and politics,” said WLSA.
