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CITIZEN participation in socio-economic governance is a constitutional right as well as a means of ensuring sustainable national development.

The Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN) recently held a post budget consultative meeting with the Bulawayo Gender Champions, a group of women equipped with gender budgeting advocacy skills.

This was done in order to present findings from an analysis of the Bulawayo City Council’s budget and enable the Gender Champions to interface with local authorities.

This platform is effective in enabling Gender Champions to have a voice in the budget making process at local level especially in influencing the provision of adequate social delivery.

The process was led by Mrs Audrey Manyemwe, the Gender Focal Person for the City of Bulawayo.

In addressing Bulawayo Gender Champions at Methodist Centre, Ms Doreen Makamure from ZWRCN highlighted that citizens can ensure equitable and quality local government service delivery by participating in pre- and post-budget consultative meetings at grassroots level. This will help in holding duty bearers at local government level accountable and may lead to the provision of adequate social service delivery.

The post-budget consultative meeting is an effort by ZWRCN in partnership with Bulawayo Progressive Residents’ Association (BPRA) and Harare Residents’ Association (HRT) to help influence gender responsive budgeting at local level under the Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) programme being implemented at local and national level.

The goal of the GRB programme is to promote the formulation and implementation of national policies and budgets that are pro-poor and sensitive to the needs and priorities of women in particular and other marginalised groups including people with disabilities, the youths and the elderly.

ZWRCN’s special focus is on empowering women to become advocates for gender responsive social service delivery.

To date, about 680 women in Zimbabwe have been equipped with gender budgeting advocacy skills. This has been done through ZWRCN’s efforts jointly with HRT and BPRA who managed to caucus and train a group of women known as Gender Champions.

This has turned out to be a vibrant and effective group of women who have managed to lead successful community meetings that aim at improving social service delivery in Zimbabwe.

This is a good approach as it promotes sustainability beyond the project being implemented by ZWRCN with with support from funding partners that include TRACE, Diakonia and Dan Church Aid.

The post budget consultative meeting attracted technocrats from the Bulawayo City Council’s various departments who managed to respond and discuss burning issues and concerns raised by Bulawayo residents.

There were deliberations on issues regarding social service delivery between the BBC technocrats and the residents.

This helped the residents to interface with the duty bearers and present their concerns. The BCC was very forthcoming and responded to most of the concerns that were raised by the residents who were being led by the Gender Champions.

Bulawayo has proposed an income budget totalling $104.47 million for the year 2018, which is to be directed towards social service delivery. The budget allocations are as follows: $26.65 million for water, $11.40 million for health, $9.26 million for sewage, $2.14 million for housing, $2.44 million for education, $5.53 million for social services, $640 000 for fire and ambulance services and $46.41 million for rates and general services.

In an effort to improve social service delivery, the Bulawayo City Council’s 2018 budget, indicates intentions to attend to the  Nyamandlovu water works through upgrading of water mains as well as renewal of flow meters and bulk mains including scheduled maintenance to improve water and sanitation in Bulawayo.

Under health, the BCC has committed to improve on refuse disposal and equipping local clinics with functional suction machines, laundry machines and furniture repairs.

The above indicates a good system that encourages citizens’ participation in decision making processes.

It is therefore important to recognise the efforts being made by civil society organisations such as ZWRCN, HRT and BPRA in making sure that local authorities work with residents in an effort to improve social service delivery.