Thokozile Ruzvidzo

Managed the two subprogrammes of the Division that is 1. Gender equality and women’s empowerment and 2. Social development Policy

The work included.

· Intellectual, strategic and technical leadership on the work of the Division in the two sub-programmes;

· Policy guidance to the African member States;

· Facilitating the convening of the strategic meetings of the Division;

· Strengthening partnerships with AUC, UNWOMEN, UNFPA and other UN agencies in joint programming including Spotlight;

· Leading the setting up of the African Women’s leadership fund

· Undertaking capacity development for members States in the various tools developed by the Division

· Providing leadership and management in the work of the two sub-programmes below in –

- producing high-quality knowledge products based on analytical and policy-oriented research to inform effective policies for inclusive, equitable and sustainable development;

- providing demand-based technical advisory services, technical assistance and national capacity strengthening in the key thematic areas of population and development; migration flows; youth and ageing; human exclusion and nutrition security; employment and social protection; and integrating urbanization in national development planning; and other factors affecting social development in Africa;

- developing tools and guidelines to facilitate the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of socially-inclusive policies and programs;

- promoting South-South knowledge sharing through policy dialogues and advocacy in the broad areas of social development highlighted previously;

- translating the regional and global commitments on the social development themes, as adapted for African member States in various AUC resolutions, into national development strategies;

- contributing to monitoring progress towards the implementation of the global and regional frameworks (the SDGs and Agenda 2063) in areas relating to social development; and

· strengthening strategic partnerships with Pan-African institutions, UN agencies, private sector and civil society including academic institutions and think tanks for building consensus on Africa’s development priority areas.

· Providing intellectual, strategic and technical leadership on the Division’s work on gender and development;

· Providing policy guidance to the African member States, and the Executive secretary on gender and development trends and strategic focus;

· Taking leadership in the production of the Division’s flagship publications and programmes;

· Developing monitoring tools for member States to report on the major commitments on Social Development;

· Providing substantive inputs into ECA’s work on governance to ensure gender is integrated effectively;

· Producing reports of the various programmatic araes

· Providing intellectual, strategic and technical leadership on the Section’s work on gender and development;

· Providing policy guidance to the African member States, the Director and Executive secretary on gender and development trends and strategic focus;

· Taking leadership in the production of the Section’s flagship publications and programmes;

· Developing monitoring tools for member States to report on the major commitments on gender equality and women’s rights;

· Providing substantive inputs into ECA’s work on governance to ensure gender is integrated effectively;

· Supporting the advisory services to member States and other institutions such as SADC Parliamentary Forum, ECCOWAS, SADC, IGAD and all the other RECs in the Region;

· Conceptualizing proposals for the organization and participate in funding negotiations/dialogues with donor partners and coordinate production of progress reports for presentation to funders/donors;

· Fostering strategic working partnerships with key national, regional and international stakeholders including civil society in the area of gender and development;

· Building partnerships with UN family that includes UNDP, UNIFEM, UNICEF, UNFPA and others.

· Building visibility for the work of ECA on gender

- coordinating preparations and organization of meetings of the Division’s statutory organ; - managing the performance of staff under my supervision; - contributing to the development of staff under my supervision;

Acting Director - African Centre for Gender and Social Development (ACGSD)

A managerial and leadership position. Managing a team of 21 professional and 9 support staff and leading the following:

- programme planning, budgeting and the requisite reporting;

- facilitating annual review of the Division’s programmes and activities;

- Spearheading building of strategic alliances and partners for the implementation of the Division’s programmes;

- fostering team work in the Division;

- facilitating the elaboration and implementation of staff career development plans;

- undertaking resource mobilisation for the Division;

At the programme level, provided intellectual leadership and management to the three Sections of the Division and this included the following in each Section:

1. Human & Social Development Section

Co-ordinating the effective implementation of the Section’s work which included;

· providing advisory and technical support to member States in the definition and implementation of social policies especially in the areas of:

· facilitating interregional cooperation to strengthen social inclusion, gender equality and health promotion in the MDG process;

· undertaking research and policy advise in youth, ageing, migration, employment and labour and youth sectors;

· providing technical support to the Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa (CHGA);

2. Gender, Women in Development Section

Co-ordinating the effective implementation of the Section’s programme and activities which included:

· mainstreaming gender in national policies, programmes and strategies for poverty

Reduction, HIV/AIDS and achievement of the MDGs;

· mainstreaming gender into the ECA governance programme;

· capacity building initiative for gender mainstreaming in member States and in ECA;

· assisting member States to implement and monitor regional and global resolutions,

conventions, instruments and protocols on women’s human rights;

· production of the Flagship publication - The African Women’s Report;

· information and communication - broadening communication outreach and information dissemination on policy advocacy, technical activities and best practices in the field of gender mainstreaming, gender equality and women’s empowerment through enhanced knowledge sharing with the AU, UN bodies, government officials, NGOs and other stakeholders.

3. MDGs, Poverty Analysis & Monitoring Section

Co-ordinating the effective implementation of the Section’s programme and activities which included:

· assisting member States to accelerate progress towards the targets of the Millennium Development Goals including HIV/AIDS targets;

· coordinating African Learning Group on Poverty Reduction Strategies and the

Millennium Development Goals;

· advancing the frontiers of understanding of the root causes of poverty and the set interventions that can help address it through research and tracing impact of these interventions on poverty outcomes.

- setting mechanisms for quality assurance of non-recurrent and recurrent publications of the Division; - enhancing African policy makers and decision makers’ awareness of the need to mainstream a gender perspective in national development policy frameworks and programmes;

Managing a team of 11 professional and support staff and providing intellectual leadership and co-ordinating the effective implementation of African Centre for Gender and Development (ACGD) programmes;

· leading the development of strategies for the implementation, monitoring and evaluation by African member States of major declarations on women’s rights and gender equality;

- providing leadership and technical and support to gender experts based at the UNECA sub-regional offices in the 5 sub-regions (Lusaka- Southern Africa, West Africa- Niamey, Central Africa - Yaoundé, East Africa- Kigali and North Africa - Rabat)) to cover various areas that include gender and HIV/AIDS, gender and economic empowerment, gender and macro-economic analysis and women’s rights.

- providing technical support to the UNECA Southern Africa Sub-regional Office to backstop the work of the SADC secretariat on gender and in the SADC Mining, Employment and Labour sectors;

My responsibilities in this position included:

- spearheading the development of tools for measuring the performance of member states in implementing the major declarations on women’s right and gender equality leading to the development of the African Gender and Development Index;

- developing indicators for the gender and HIV/AIDS component of the index;

- providing technical support to the team working on the HIV/AIDS report for the commission on HIV/AIDS and governance in Africa;

- providing technical services to Regional NGOs working on gender and;

- providing practical guidance, technical support and capacity building services to member states in gender mainstreaming;

- facilitating the provision of guidelines gender mainstreaming in the ECA outputs to member States;

- providing intellectual leadership in the definition of guidelines in mainstreaming gender in ECA conferences and seminars;

- providing practical guidance, technical support and capacity building services to member states in gender mainstreaming;

- building strategic partnerships in the area of gender mainstreaming;

- leading the team producing the ECA flagship on women’s situation in Africa;

providing member states with an appropriate tool to measure and report the extent of gender inequality as well as the outcomes of gender policies in the empowerment of women.

Led the consulting firm with a fulltime staff of 4 and a network of consultants that varied from

time to time, from 5 to 10 depending on the magnitude and scale of work. The consulting firm

covered the following areas:

- Organizational Development;

- Capacity development

- Gender and Rural Development;

- Planning, monitoring and evaluation of organizations and programmes;

- Programme and organizational development;

- Research, Financial Planning and Management, National/Programme/Project Analysis;

- Gender Training, assisting in integration of gender in organisations, assisting with development of gender policies and strategies;

- Research in the area of gender in varied sectoral areas. Financial Planning and Management;

- Undertaking training on defining strategies for implementing programmes aimed at

- Addressing Gender and HIV/AIDS;

- Assisting the Ministry of Education in Zimbabwe in developing a gender strategy for their Education programme;

- Providing consultancy services to institutions such as UNAIDS in Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Women’s Aids Network;

- Supporting National machineries in the Southern Africa sub-region to define national gender strategies.

Strategic definition and implementation of the organisation’s programmes that included:

- Gender Training;

- Lobby, advocacy, awareness raising and policy dialogue on gender issues and women’s rights and political participation;

- Defining the organisation’s women’s human rights programme, that included HIV/AIDS concerns;

- Collection and dissemination of information relevant for different groupings of women;

Ø Gender and development public discussions and debates on topical gender issues in Zimbabwe

- Spearheaded the organisation's co-ordination of the SADC preparations for the Beijing World Conference on women for NGOs and governments as the Regional Field Focal Institution on behalf of the Royal Netherlands Government;

- Coordinating production of the annual report;

- Setting up the financial and administrative systems for ZWRCN;

- Leading the organisation’s team in resource mobilisation, building strategic alliances,

networking and advocacy.

Supporting the Zimbabwe Women’s Parliamentarian caucus

Provided leadership to a regional team of 6 staff members based in Zambia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Swaziland, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya.

- Spearheading the strategic focussing and planning in the area of Human Rights in the African Region;

- Defining strategic partners and defining partnership strategies;

HIVOS - is Dutch donor agency with SADC Regional Office in Harare. Focus on international

development and regional development support My responsibilities were.

- Participating in the formulation of HIVOS policies and strategies for the Region;

- Mainstreaming gender in all the organisation’s programme

- Analysing and processing applications from local non -governmental organisations;

- Initiating the HIV/AIDS programme for HIVOS in the Southern Africa sub-region;

- Building partnerships with NGOs working on HIV/AIDS;

- Undertaking in policy discussions with stakeholders;

- Assisting organisations in their institutional development by providing advice;

- Responsible for a total budget of DFL 8 million for the two countries;

- Analysing the budgets and audited financial reports submitted to HIVOS by counterparts;

- I was also the back-up officer for the HIVOS programme in South Africa;

- Monitoring partner programmes including thorough regular field visits;

- Preparing annual plans and reports on the programme

- Producing narrative and financial reports, evaluations, etc.

- Designing Community Development Programmes and Projects and participating in the monitoring and evaluation of these projects/programmes.

- Co-ordinating the incorporation of results from fieldwork, research, planning, monitoring and evaluation into development of group activities.

- Ensuring the development of these group activities by identifying technical training needs and providing this training.

- Assisting groups to obtain grants/loans from external and internal sources (Development partners). Instrumental in the formulation of the ministry’s policy and disbursement of loans and grants.

- Co-ordinating and monitoring the assistance given to the groups by donor agencies.

- Evaluating programmes on women in Development undertaken by the Ministry of Community Development and Women’s Affairs.

- Co-ordinating major projects set up, in the Ministry to strengthen women's participation in mainstream development.

- Providing linkages between project activities and activities of the other sections within the Ministry of Community, Co-operative Development and Women’s Affairs. Also assisting the two-way process of issue-raising and policy formulation at project and ministry level.

At the same time, was also Officer in Charge - Assistant Secretary for Planning and my duties in that capacity were:

- Drawing up and preparing the section’s financial estimates of expenditure.

- Preparing the Ministry’s Public Sector Investment Programme Estimates for presentation to the Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development.

- Co-ordinating the drawing up of the Ministry’s short, medium and long-term plans.

- Assisting in the review of the Ministry’s Programmes in light of stated objectives.

- Processing reports from the 8 provincial officers.

- Ensuring that the Ministry inputs relevant planning activities of other agencies.

- Developing guidelines for planning by grassroots extension staff.

- Co-ordinating the Youth Development Programme of the 58 Districts of Zimbabwe;

- Analysing and appraising projects and recommending them for funding by government;

- Assisting in the monitoring and evaluation of these projects;

- Processing, collating and submitting reports on the projects.

- Supervision of Youth District Officers from the 7 Districts of Harare;

- Initiating income-generating projects for urban youths;

- Monitoring and evaluating these projects, to determine viability and whether the objectives of creating employment for youths were being met;

- Initiating training programmes for youths;

- Co-ordinating NGOs and other agencies involved in youth work at district level;

The Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture was at that time a newly formed Ministry, so my responsibilities were:

- Research on possible programmes and projects for young unemployed youth, especially ex-combatants.

- Research into sport and recreational activities for young people in the rural areas.

- Ensuring that research needs for the sections of Youth, Sports and Recreation and Culture were met at Provincial Level.

- Inputting into relevant research programmes of other Governmental and Non-Governmental Organisations.