Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development has committed to take the onerous task of reducing poverty, responding to high incidences of Gender Based Violence and Child Marriages through the implementation of programmes at grassroots level.
Addressing various stakeholders last week at a Strategic Planning Workshop, Women Affairs Minister, Sithembiso Nyoni said her ministry is working towards taking concrete action plan to promote women empowerment and poverty reduction while ensuring full participation of women and communities.
“Our thrust is on poverty eradication through implementation of grassroots/community level programmes that can transform the lives of communities.
“To coordinate the implementation of the National Gender Policy through mainstreaming gender across all sectors by ensuring that all laws, policies, programmes, strategies and projects being implemented by across all sectors are gender responsive,
“In the same programme we intend to respond to high incidences of Gender Based Violence and child marriages through the implementation of the National programme of Response to GBV,” she said.
Nyoni went on to emphasize the need to be mindful of the marginalized populations; these include the elderly, the disabled, orphans, who have continuously been side-lined and their cries are going with little notice.
In addition, the Ministry seeks to Promote the participation of women in the value chains of key economic sectors such as Agriculture, Tourism and Mining to ensure sustainable economic growth which nation is yearning for.
“As a ministry we are supporting the implementation of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy to ensure women have access to start up and operational capital to enable them to actively participate in the economy. The current focus is on establishing more ISAL groups and their transformation into SACCOs,
“Expansion and transformation of our two training centres to facilitate skill development and transformation for women to enable them to be relevant and adequately respond to our present economic circumstances,” added Nyoni.
