Tinaani Nyabereka
Gweru- Residents have been urged to be actively involved in decision making processes in order to be drivers of development in the community.
The call was made by the Women Institute of Leadership Development (WILD) in partnership with Gweru United Progressive Residents and Ratepayers Development Association (GUPRARDA) during a citizen participation engagement in the Midlands capital last week.
The aim of the engagement was to equip the 25 selected local champions who were drawn from Gweru Urban Constituency with skills to hold office bearers to account.
Unpacking the concept of citizen participation in his presentation, GUPRARDA director Pastor David Chikore said it is important for citizens to be involved as there was nothing for them without them.
“It is important to know what drive citizen participation and be equipped with the necessary skills so that you go and capacitate others. The problem why most projects without our input fail is because we are not involved in the first place. If ward meetings are called, we don’t attend; none of our input is given. Lack of involvement affect you tomorrow because no one will stand for your ideas or concerns as residents.
“In Zimbabwe citizen participation is grounded primarily on the Constitution. The Preamble to the Constitution highlights the need to entrench democracy, good, transparent and accountable governance and reaffirms commitment to upholding and defending human rights and freedoms.
“The power to govern by any tier of government is derived from the people of Zimbabwe, an indication that they should be active participants in governance and development issues in their jurisdiction. In addition, citizens have inalienable rights (access to information, freedom of expression, (being heard among others) which only a well-defined citizen participation agenda can satisfy. More specifically, the supreme law of the land confers powers to the citizens.
“One thing we ought to understand is that when we select our leaders or representatives, it is assigning them to go and do what we want in the office. So as our mouths and ears they go either to council or parliament but we remain as the mind. At a local level, we then stand as the council and those in office are implementers of the work we task them. The problem comes when our leaders become everything that is our eyes, our mouth and our mind, there must be a collective approach always so that we attain development and well maintaining the checks and balances.
“In our communities we have a spate of challenges, poor roads, service provision and water supply, we need to come up with lasting solutions as a people because sometimes we cannot burden our elected leaders to craft solutions,” he said.
Chikore added it is also crucial for citizens to know how to advocate and lobby for their challenges.
“Advocacy is about identifying a problem in a community, coming up with a solution to that problem, establishing strong support for that solution and providing an effective implementation plan. Lobbying influential people for support is part of the advocacy process.
“Advocacy is essentially all about three things that is creating policies where they are needed when none exist, reforming harmful or ineffective policies and ensuring good policies are implemented and enforced,” Chikore added.
Another participant Richard Chimbudzi of Mtapa ward 6 said there was need for constant engagement to capacitate citizens more on community participation programmes.
“There is need to constantly have such workshops as we need to be well equipped with knowledge. We also have citizens in the rural areas, we need the same for them in order for development to take shape. I now have knowledge of what citizen participation is all about because I have been taught.
“As residents, let me say we have an active role to play in our own constituency. If we don’t see the need to participate, we are only crippling ourselves not the councillor or MP. It was our duty to be well informed always with calendar of events such as ward meetings and constituency feedback meetings,” he said.
GUPRARDA Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Lewis Kuchineyi urged Gweru residents to be in charge of their own development.
