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Zimbabwe Women's Parliamentary Caucus - Opening remarks
Hon. Edna Madzongwe, Deputy Speaker of Parliament
October 25, 2002

Honourable MPs; 
Representatives of the various stakeholder organisations; 
Distinguished guests; 
Ladies and gentlemen.

It gives me great pleasure to have the honour to open this important workshop, which has been organised by the Zimbabwe Women’s Parliamentary Caucus with the aim of interacting with stakeholders.

I am pleased to note that this meeting is taking place at a time when Zimbabwe Women’s Parliamentary Caucus is celebrating its second anniversary. It is therefore fitting that this workshop be appraised of the plan of action of the Parliamentary Women’s Caucus, its objectives, activities and the progress that has been made so far towards achieving these objectives. I am aware that some challenging issues will come out of the deliberations between the Zimbabwe Women’s Parliamentary Caucus and the various stakeholders who are represented here. I urge you to interface and to share experiences with a view to map the way forward.

Allow me at this moment to commend the Zimbabwe Women’s Parliamentary Caucus for organizing this workshop, which in my view was long overdue. Workshops, like this one, yield immense benefits, which arise from programmed, serious and dedicated networking and rapport with stakeholders. Submissions by the stakeholders who have immense grassroots experiences will enhance the ability of Women Parliamentarians to undertake a multifaceted agenda that seek to address the various social, economic, political and cultural ills that negatively affect women and children. It is important that the Zimbabwe Women’s Parliamentary Caucus be capacitated to engage in gender mainstreaming and HIV/AIDS among other issues to enable the group to effectively feed into the legislative process from an informed point of view.

Women Parliamentarians have a dual representative role in that, apart from representing constituencies, you also represent women who constitute 55% of our population. As such you should remain focused on the challenging task before you of representing the largest but marginalized group in our society. You are therefore expected to spearhead change in societal attitudes by virtue of your being in parliament by ensuring that legislation passed by the House is gender sensitive. I call upon Zimbabwe Women’s Parliamentary Caucus to take advantage of your being in parliament to network with the relevant stakeholders in order to build a database of the relevant information and facts that you require. This will enable you to become both effective and visible.

Although we still need to work towards increased numbers of women parliamentarians, the few that are there at the moment need to work diligently in order to set benchmarks for future women parliamentarians to follow. I urge you to take stock of the problems that affect women and children in society and to articulate a way forward on these issues. The Zimbabwe Women’s Parliamentary Caucus should act as a coordinating mechanism for women in our quest to effectively and positively impact on the social, economic, political and cultural processes of our country.

The ‘change’ and ‘impact’ that women seek should be broad based in terms of approach and objectives. This is so because women issues are not confined to one Ministry but cuts across ministries. These two concepts should signal to us a change that is all-inclusive, and which takes on board policy formulation, policy implementation and decision making relating to a wide variety of social, political and economic issues that tend to inhibit women to strive to become what they want to be.

There is need for further research and studies that explore how Zimbabwean women can practically maximize their impact on the social, economic and political processes and on Parliamentary procedures. I call on your deliberations to look at the most suitable structures that need to be set up or to be capacitated in order to make this goal a reality. I also urge the Zimbabwe Women’s Parliamentary Caucus in consultation with all stakeholders to develop a work-plan that will assist you in being focused in your endeavours.

It is in this regard therefore that it is imperative to network and to establish collaborative partnerships with the different stakeholder organisations. It must be noted that the majority of the stakeholder organizations. It must be noted that the majority of the stakeholder organisations have at their disposal information resources, which you require in order to discharge your duties efficiently. Such stakeholder meetings should also act as capacity building sessions for all participants. May I take this opportunity to call on women in the upper echelons of politics to resist the temptation of becoming an elite group that only networks amongst itself. There is need to interface on a regular basis with other women particularly those with strong links with the grassroots.

Finally, I urge you all to engage in sincere exchanges by developing a common and shared vision that adequately represents the interests of women.

With these few remarks, I declare this workshop open.

I thank you.

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