UNDP Country Director, Ms. Christine Umutoni has described as timely the introduction of Gender Responsive Economic Policy Economic Management Initiative (GEPMI) in Zimbabwe, saying it coincides with the launch of the country’s Medium Term Plan. The Country Director also commended the Government of Zimbabwe for being one of the first five African states to accept and rollout the initiative.

“The ultimate goal of GEPMI is to equip policy makers, economists and budget officers with the ability and expertise to interrogate gender inequalities and thereby address some of the imbalances through gender aware economics,” said the Country Director, adding that economic policy formulation and implementation that ignores gender balance or statistics without sex-disaggregated data are null and void because they fail to represent the real situation on the ground. The Country Director stressed that economics cannot operate well if policies are silent on economic issues that affect more than half of population (52% women in Zimbabwe).

The Country Director made these remarks at the start of a four-day expert workshop that started in Nyanga on September 27, 2011. It was held as part of the Gender Responsive Economic Policy Economic Management Initiative (GEPMI) in Zimbabwe. Organised by the Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development and the Ministry of Economic Planning and Investment Promotion in collaboration with UNDP, the objective of the workshop was to provide training on the various modules that comprise the short course on Gender-Responsive Economic Policy Management.

Participants were drawn from the public sector, universities, research institutions   and civil society organizations. The workshop also served as a forum for the training of trainers and facilitating the customization of the GEPMI short course modules to the Zimbabwe context before the commencement of the training scheduled to be officially launched in November, 2011.

At the end of the event, participants were expected to be equipped with “gender lenses” to view policy and be in a position to demonstrate how gender-differences affect economic outcomes. The lead facilitator was a regional expert in gender mainstreaming in economic planning and management, Dr. Gertrude Muwanga from Makerere University School of Finance and Management, co-facilitated by Dr. Auxilia Ponga the Gender Practice Leader for UNDP Eastern and Southern Africa and with the assistance of the UNDP Economics Advisor, James Wakiaga and Programme Officer for Gender, Ms. Doreen Nyamukapa.