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Residents ramp up fight against drug abuse

The article discusses efforts in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, to combat drug and substance abuse by encouraging residents to form task forces and neighborhood watch groups to identify and address drug-related issues in collaboration with law enforcement. It also highlights challenges faced by the government, such as budgetary constraints and inadequate infrastructure, in effectively addressing rising drug abuse cases. Residents in Bulawayo have been challenged to form taskforces to search houses they suspect to be drug havens in the presence of the police as their contribution to the fight against drug abuse. Bulawayo United Residents Association chairperson Winos Dube made the call [...]

2024-04-19T17:28:05+00:0019th April 2024|

Substance abuse in Zimbabwe – a Civic Action Teams report

Despite the classification of drug and substance abuse in Zimbabwe as a matter of national disaster, instances of drug and substance abuse are on the rise in Zimbabwe and set to stay on this trajectory till 20230. The Zimbabwe Government’s resolve in addressing Drugs and Substance Abuse, as seen through laws, regulations, and a National Drug Master Plan, is commendable. Accountability Lab through its Civic Action Teams (CivActs) identified community concerns and recommendations on alleviating the challenges around Drugs and Substance Abuse. It also conducted hearings with different government officials and parliament. These conversations and research processes showed that there [...]

2024-04-19T16:36:54+00:0019th December 2023|

Battleground constituencies in Zimbabwe’s 2023 elections

Elections are an exciting and well-studied subject across the world. They attract a tremendous amount of  this excitement stemming from their competitive nature and “peoples” enduring a belief in them as the best way to provide governors with legitimate province over governance, or the absence of alternatives. For some, elections are the essence of democracy and legitimacy, and a close approximation of the rule of the people by the people through evidence of their express consent to authority, itself a fundamental tenant of political legitimacy. Resultantly, elections invariably whip up a frenzy, as the public, commentariat, and scholars engage in [...]

2023-08-22T19:32:42+00:0022nd August 2023|

“Supporting Zimbabwe to get free and fair elections is not an event but a process”: The Role of the EU Election Observation Mission

The European Union deploys one of the largest observer missions to monitor the 2023 Zimbabwe elections. We spoke to Dr McDonald Lewanika, politics and development professional, about the importance of the verdict by EU election observers and what contributions European actors can make to assist Zimbabweans in getting the elections they want. By McDonald Lewanika and Katrin Seidel Earlier in the year, the European Union had sent 46 long-term observers and 11 political analysts to Zimbabwe. On Election Day over 150 observers from EU member states as well as Canada, Norway and Switzerland will be monitoring the elections. This is [...]

2023-08-18T12:32:05+00:0018th August 2023|

ZEC Petitioned Over Exorbitant Candidate Nomination Fees

Seven Civic Society Organizations (CSOs) have petitioned the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), demanding an immediate revision of the exorbitant candidate nomination fees. The nomination fees, as per Statutory Instrument 144 of 2022, currently stand at US$20,000 for presidential candidates, payable in cash or the prevailing official rate equivalent and candidates for Parliament must pay US$1,000, while Proportional Representation party lists for Parliament and Provincial Councils are requested to pay US$100. The CSOs argue that the current fees pose a significant barrier to political participation, particularly for marginalized groups such as young people, women, and persons with disabilities. "We demand that, [...]

2023-05-30T09:34:59+00:0025th May 2023|

Applying CivActs to Housing Insecurity in Mbare

By Kibo Ngowi What does it look like to close the feedback loop between citizens and authorities to ensure people-powered accountability? That’s the question we’ve been asking for the last seven years starting in Nepal after the devastating 2015 earthquake when we established the Mobile Citizen Helpdesks with a vision of galvanizing volunteers to bridge the information gap and respond to the unfolding humanitarian crisis.  Since then the program has been renamed Civic Action Teams (CivActs) and evolved to address a variety of challenges such as migration, human trafficking, inclusion and elections across the several countries where we operate including [...]

2023-01-09T08:51:59+00:009th January 2023|

Rebuilding Accountability Chains One Action and Community at a Time

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 [...]

2022-10-05T08:25:04+00:003rd October 2022|

Rebuilding Accountability Chains in Zimbabwe

By Alois Nyamazana Broken accountability chains lie at the heart of Zimbabwe’s governance problems. Lack of accountability in Zimbabwe has led to the squandering of precious public resources, and a collapse in the systems that are meant to fulfill citizens’ social and economic rights such as access to clean water, health, education, and adequate food. Citizens, particularly the vulnerable, bear the burden of failed accountability mechanisms, in the face of a deteriorating economy. Compounding this burden is corruption with recent events such as the COVID-gate scandal, in which government officials abused COVID-19 resources by flouting procurement and procedural regulations. A [...]

2022-09-05T09:37:34+00:005th September 2022|

The PVO Bill is a Step Backwards for Zimbabwean Women

By Alois Nyamazana, Accountability Lab Zimbabwe Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Manager “Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development, and building good governance.” – Kofi Annan On 5 November 2021, the Government of Zimbabwe announced its intentions to change the existing Private Voluntary Organisations (PVO) Act to discourage money laundering and prevent non-state actors from “politicizing charitable giving.” If passed into law in its current form, the Private Voluntary Organizations Amendment Bill, H.B. 10, 2001 will have negative implications on gender development in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has [...]

2022-06-21T14:24:10+00:0021st June 2022|

Crackdown on NGOs could impact election observation

Zimbabwe is pressing ahead with a controversial Bill that critics say seeks to criminalise the operations of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in the country. According to senior government officials, amendments to the Private Voluntary Organisations (PVOs) Act is designed to stop illegal money from coming into the country under the guise of NGO funding, but is allegedly used to push a political agenda and political lobbying. The ruling party, Zanu PF, has been suspicious of NGOs, routinely accusing them of working with hostile foreign countries to push what it calls a "regime change agenda". In recent days, members of the [...]

2022-04-03T12:13:47+00:0024th March 2022|
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