Celebrating international women’s month through resilience building in Zimbabwe

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) in Zimbabwe today joined the citizens of Zimbabwe, the UN family and other development partners in celebrating the international women’s month through a virtual tour of projects in the Zvishavane district. The objective of the virtual tour was to showcase the impact of the Zimbabwe Resilience Building Fund (ZRBF) programme interventions as well as give ZRBF key stakeholders, and other participants an opportunity to listen to the contributions that the programme has made in alleviating the effects of climate change across the 18 ZRBF districts. The ZRBF project has been building different resilience capacities of women to deal with hazards and disasters among beneficiaries

As we celebrate this year’s international women’s month under the theme, ‘Changing Climates: Equality today for a sustainable tomorrow,’ FAO believes that the contribution of women and girls to building sustainable agri-food systems is anchored around building their resilience. In Zimbabwe, FAO has been building resilience of women through various programmes that promote women through asset ownership; access to training and information on climate change; challenging gender social norms that discriminate women among other gender sensitive programmes and interventions aimed at addressing and achieving SDGs 1 and 2 to end hunger and poverty.

“The virtual showcases demonstrated that through the ZRBF, women are key to learn and implement innovative approaches to disaster risk management.  When women are educated and are able to mobilize financial resources, they are more keen to invest in their families. That is the reason why women should be empowered by owning assets, and decide on the use of their resources. When women are empowered, they can organize themselves in the communities and better take care of their families,” said Dr. Patrice Talla, FAO Subregional Coordinator for Southern Africa and FAO Representative to Zimbabwe.

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