By Alois Nyamazana

Zimbabwe’s informal economy is the second largest in the world. The ILO estimates that 5.2 million people trade in the informal economy (compared to 495,000 who are in formal employment), and 65% of these are women. Informal trade is a precarious and insecure source of livelihood. Adding to this challenge is the criminalization of informal trade[  as a result of an insufficient policy environment. Informal traders constantly face harassment from authorities. For example, in Goromonzi, traders are in constant conflict with state and municipal authorities. This has resulted in traders losing valuable income, and women traders facing sexual coercion and extortion.

CivActs has provided an opportunity to learn about the challenges faced by informal traders and the importance of engagement between power holders and citizens to address challenges. The project organized meetings between citizens and power holders in Goromonzi RDC in which a shortage of selling spaces for traders was raised. CivActs surveyed to establish the prevalence and magnitude of the problem, confirming what had been said in the meeting. Feedback meetings sharing these results with citizens and power holders, helped participants propose solutions, including the construction of a new market stall. Construction of the stall is still in progress. Similarly, In Bulawayo, CivActs has also facilitated dialogues between vendors and the Bulawayo City Council, which has resulted in the de-criminalization of informal work. The Council is now issuing vendors licenses so they can sell their goods without fear of victimization.

Issue Alignment with Power Holders

Poor waste management is another perennial problem affecting Zimbabwe.  Thousands of people lost their lives in cholera epidemics in 2008 and 2017 as a result of poor waste management. The country is also struggling to keep the environment clean, particularly in urban areas. The 2008 cholera epidemic that led to the death of thousands of Zimbabweans is well documented. The circumstances in the affected communities that led to the epidemic have not improved in the affected communities, particularly in Mbare, a suburb of Harare.

Poor waste management practices by the Council still place residents in danger of a major public health crisis. The project conducted community meetings in which residents raised their concerns with stakeholders about their concerns. One such engagement was attended by the Environmental Management Authority, and following advocacy by citizens working through CivActs resulted in Harare City Council being fined $800 000 for failure to maintain environmental standards that were safe for human habitation. The fine prompted action from the Municipality, with the Council taking measures to address the issues of refuse collection and waste disposal.

Feedback from citizens shows that there has been significant improvement in waste management with 85% of surveyed residents reporting an improvement in waste collection and an overall increase in the number of residents who reported regular waste collection by the Council. Indeed, the heaps of garbage have since disappeared as the Council is now making a greater effort to meet the environmental standards mandated by the environmental authority. This success is a result of continuous engagement between citizens and power holders.  

Small Steps, Big Gains

Chitungwiza has faced similar challenges around waste management and the availability of tap water. Section 77(a) of the 2013 Constitution (Amendment No. 20) guarantees the right of every Zimbabwean to safe, clean, and potable water. Despite this, the Chitungwiza municipality has carried out disconnections without notice, inconveniencing residents who had limited access to the resource, to begin with.  Through dialogue and engagement with the Council, residents negotiated for the municipality to update them more frequently, and share a schedule of when water would be available. This is a positive development as it promotes accountability on the part of the Council in meeting the Constitutional mandate and enables citizens to plan accordingly. Another group of residents in Chitungwiza has successfully negotiated for a schedule for garbage collection to be shared with them.

Accountability Lab has learned some very important lessons, which include the following:

1. Engagement is more important than confrontation: It is important to facilitate engagement between power holders and citizens to enable the co-creation of solutions to accountability challenges. Confrontation, playing the “blame game”, and finger-pointing do not produce results as some stakeholders may feel attacked and become defensive, negatively affecting progress. 
2. Work with unlikely partners: It is important to identify unlikely partners who are not always involved in governance and accountability work. These unusual stakeholders bring different knowledge and understanding to challenges and help to provide a holistic approach to addressing governance issues. The project has so far worked with unlikely partners such as the Environmental Management Agency (EMA), Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority, and business organizations that are normally not included in addressing community issues. 
3. Create room for citizens to speak for themselves: Grassroots community members must have an opportunity to speak their challenges directly to power holders, as opposed to organizations, with CSOs speaking on their behalf. Power holders can better understand governance issues that are faced by citizens when they have platforms where they can interact with them. 

This series of blogs about how CivActs is working in Zimbabwe illustrates the importance of citizen participation in governance and public decision to rebuild broken accountability chains. An active citizenry is a key ingredient for evidence-based development and going forward, it is important as a country to promote citizens’ participation through;

1.  Creating platforms through which elected officials can regularly and systematically engage with citizens for them to have an understanding of issues affecting them so that they can take the issues to higher levels for solutions. Elected officials who fail to do so should be sanctioned.
2.  Any policy or program that is formulated at either the subnational level or national level should be informed by the views of citizens regarding what is more appropriate.
3. There is a need to capacitate citizens to have confidence and capacity to hold power holders to account without fear of victimization.

Kibo Ngowi