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Chido Manzini, Correspondent
THE United Nations Sustainable Development goal number five gives direction on the need to ensure gender equality and the protection of women and the Girl Child.

Previous articles by this author have advocated for the empowerment of women and youth as the disadvantaged groups and in this article the issue of sustainability to ensure a better tomorrow is interrogated.

Sustainability is the need to use available resources without compromising the ability of the planet to sustain future generations, in recognition of the role of natural and built habitats in ensuring human well-being and community resilience.

The gendered discourse remains a topical issue given that despite the giant strides taken by the Zimbabwean Government since independence in 1980, gender equality has remained elusive.

Gender equality is when people of all genders have equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities (online dictionary). In view of the above statement, it is not a debatable fact that women play a critical role in ensuring community well-being through their participation in development issues.

However, women’s full participation is restricted by the dominance of men in most positions of authority in local authority and in the politics of decision making and resource allocation. This lack of authority to participate effectively in decisions that affect tomorrow’s sustainability is the reason why women continue to push the equality agenda.

Notwithstanding the above contribution, Benkele (2013) cited in Manzini (2020), postulated that it is important to develop the positive attitude in women, through equipping them with the “divatude”.

This divatude would ensure that women are “united, driven, inspired, victorious, focused and action oriented” in order for them to achieve success and sustainability in any endeavour they partake, in particular in their business development. Achieving sustainability is implied to depend on the ability of women to come together and pursue a common goal.

The United Nations-sponsored Green Enter-prize International Labour Organisation (ILO) competitions gives both genders the opportunity to come up with viable projects that make use of locally available resources in a sustainable way, thus going green.
In that competition women have stood their ground winning through coming up with brilliant projects such as collecting plastics and making souvenirs and some youths coming up with brick moulding projects. The issue of encouraging a healthy competition for the genders is the way to go for a better future.

The sum total of women effort pulling in one direction would ensure that they achieve a better tomorrow. The previous article alluded to women taking advantage of the devolution agenda to infiltrate into councils and the same thrust is advocated for in this article.

With devolution of resources comes opportunities to fully participate in critical decisions as to how the resources should be utilised at a local level as centralisation does not offer that unique opportunity.

It follows that the achievement of equality on all spheres of life be it, social, economic or political is vital for women empowerment. Women participation as equal to men has paramount importance for a healthy society and future generations. Charter of United Nations Organisation 1945 declares that all mankind have equal social, economic and political rights in spite of different entities that is gender, race, colour, religion and region.

To that end the role of women in ensuring sustainability for a better tomorrow is very clear as women always strive to put food on the table for their families, but lack the resources to do so effectively.  On the other hand, it is important that as the girl child is empowered so should the boy child so that the mental block that separates the roles of both genders are eliminated for future generations.

The growing participation of women in politics in developing countries is strongly encouraged by governments, Zimbabwe included, and hence the need for women to upgrade their educational qualifications so that they can assume positions of authority as the Government continues to avail the quota system in the country.

According to Plan-international, governments must commit to ensuring “full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision making in politics, economics and public life”.

This is a call for the education system to introduce a leadership curriculum that eliminates the inferiority mentality from the girl child that makes them look up to man for leadership. Catching them young should be the focus when it comes to leadership training so that all both genders recognise their role in sustainability and equality.

Socially the empowerment of women and the girl child comes through the emancipation of the boy child patriarchal thinking. If leaders and family heads within the society are able to disrupt the social status quo of putting the boy child ahead then the beginning of equality starts.

This is so because the classification of gender roles is therefore dismantled and both male and female stand as one.

When this culture is cultivated at a tender age, it guarantees the overhaul of the entire society in achieving the sustainable goal number five.