CARE will work to address gender inequality with tailored interventions to address specific barriers and constraints experienced differently by women, girls, men, and boys of various ages, life stages, and socioeconomic status. CARE will apply its Gender Equality and Women’s Voice Framework to implement interventions that engage both men and women to empower women and adolescent girls by: increasing their autonomy; improving structures that influence gender power dynamics; equalizing relationships historically reinforced by long-standing social norms and beliefs. This will take place in Zimbabwe using community visioning approaches that put community aspirations, needs, and voice at the center of all of Takunda’s objectives and interventions. The program will work closely with local authorities and the government of Zimbabwe to improve maternal and child health, nutrition, water, sanitation, hygiene, climate change adaptation, and gender equality.

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START4GIRLS will work with girls and adolescent women (aged 12 – 22 years), their communities, and religious and traditional leaders to promote return to school or entrance into vocational skills training for girls who have dropped out, especially married girls and teenage mothers. The project will take place in Mutare and Buhera Districts in Manicaland Province, characterized by arid and semi-arid conditions and recurrent droughts and economic and political instability. The project is estimated to directly benefit 59,040 people (31,291 women and 27,749 men).

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CARE International in Zimbabwe to implement a WASH project in four Provinces of Zimbabwe. The target Districts represents some of the most vulnerable communities in Zimbabwe. The consultant is honoured and appreciates CARE International in Zimbabwe for choosing them among other consultants for the baselines study. Special thanks to Beth Megnassan Emergency (WASH and Gender Advisor) for WASH’Em Tools training. The team appreciates technical and logistical support provided by CARE Zimbabwe WASH team including in the data collection. The project team acknowledges all the households and key stakeholders in Norton, Mutare, Zaka, Mberengwa, Zvishavane and Chivi District for agreeing to participate in the survey and providing the information that made possible to obtain the Hygiene baseline in the project intervention areas. This report was compiled by Andrew Chinyepe (Team Leader), Oswald Dengende and Christella Langton.

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The CARE led consortium has been one of the three consortiums implementing partners for the Zimbabwe Resilience Building Fund (ZRBF) UNDP and government of Zimbabwe programme for the July 2016 to June 2017 year. The consortium has been implementing the Enhancing Community Resilience and Sustainability (ECRAS) project in Chiredzi and Mwenezi districts of Masvingo province. The most common hazards for the two districts have been observed to be droughts and mid-season dry spells, crop and livestock pests and diseases resulting poor maize harvests, high cattle poverty death in the province and smallholder farmers getting very low prices for their cattle. Low lying wards in the two districts are prone to flooding. The 2016/17 agricultural season has been an exception. It was characterized by excessive rains which resulted in water logging, leaching nd flooding. Potential crop yield was also negatively affected by breaks of armored cricket and fall armyworm. Flooding due to the effects of Tropical Cyclone Dineo resulted in loss of both human and livestock, washing away of some crop fields and damage to property such as houses, school and clinic buildings and destruction of bridges and roads. The cash crisis affecting the country has adversely affected some project interventions especially Village Savings and Lending (VSL). Some groups especially in Chiredzi have embraced use of Ecocash, in their savings and lending, in respond to the cash crisis.
The ECRAS project facilitated the development and implementation of Disaster Risk Management Plans in all the 29 project wards (17 Chiredzi and 12 Mwenezi) which contributed in flood prone wards being able to reduce human and livestock and property loses as a result of Tropical Cyclone Dineo. Implementation of all project activities, such as establishment of Village Savings and Lending, creation of social funds, the promotion of climate smart agriculture and market linkages are well on track. The ECRAS life of project (LOP) budget amounted to USD3, 297,077 inclusive of the crisis modifier component. The expenditure for year one amounted to USD 1,001,780.24 against projection of USD1,013,267.58 culminating in year one burn of 82%.

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CARE International in Zimbabwe working in partnership with LDS, LID and ICRISAT is implementing the Enhancing Community
Resilience and Inclusive Market Systems (ECRIMS) project. The project is funded by the Zimbabwe Resilience Building Fund, ZRBF,
designed as a multi donor fund in collaboration with UNDP and Ministry of Lands, Agriculture & Rural Resettlement. ECRIMS
applies a system approach to resilience, building capacities and transforming inequity dynamics across all aspects of the system
including household, community, relevant value chains and the enabling environment. Market systems are prioritised as the most
relevant systems to the targeted communities, whose key livelihoods depend on crop and livestock markets.

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Enhancing Nutrition Stepping Up Resilience and Enterprises (ENSURE), originally was a 5 year project which was supposed to end in June 2018 but was extended to February 2020. It is funded by USAID and is implemented in six districts in Manicaland and Masvingo Provinces by a consortium led by World Vision. The other consortium members are CARE, SNV, SAFIRE and ICRISAT. World Vision is the implementing lead in Buhera, Chipinge and Chimanimani Districts of Manicaland Province, while CARE is the implementing lead in Bikita, Chivi and Zaka Districts of Masvingo Province. The project aims to cushion vulnerable and food insecure Zimbabweans in the target districts. The main thrust of the project is to empower and capacitate poor, rural households in the targeted districts to become more food secure. The geographical scope of the ENSURE project was carefully selected to involve agro-ecological zones 4 and 5 where food insecurity is high and covering a total of 66 wards of which 32 wards are in Manicaland Province and 34 are in Masvingo Province. The ENSURE project is anchored on three main thematic areas namely maternal and child health (SO1), agriculture and economic development (SO2), and resilience (SO3). Gender is included as a cross cutting objective which has been embraced in this project in order to increase equity in access to resources among men and women.

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In rural Zimbabwe, significant barriers hinder or prevent girls from going to school, from staying in school and from attending school regularly. These barriers to girls’ education exist within the community and society, at the school level, at the family level and with the individual girl. For example, when household poverty is combined with widely-held societal norms and beliefs in rural Zimbabwe that place little or no value on educating girls, families will routinely prioritize boys’ schooling over girls’ due to direct costs of schooling (e.g., school fees, uniforms), and indirect costs (e.g., loss of girls’ labor at home).

Societal practices such as girls’ early marriage and gender-based violence further reinforce these barriers. Girls who live far from school, daily risk unsafe journeys traveling to and from school. These long journeys, combined with the time girls need to fulfil their traditional role of being responsible for household chores and for younger siblings, have various repercussions: girls arrive late to school; they have little time to do school homework; and they learn that household responsibilities are more important than their schooling.

Girls who grow up in households and communities that do not value girls’ education learn not to value their own schooling. These barriers are fortified further when school environments are not girl-friendly. For example, a rural Zimbabwean girl who is menstruating commonly will miss one week of school each month if her school does not have safe, secure toilets for girls, with water and menstrusal hygiene products such as pads. If she experiences sexual abuse, whether that abuse happens at school, at home, and/or in the community, her learning will be affected.  She also will not be able to learn effectively if her teachers are poorly trained; if the classroom norm is for boys to be active and ask questions and for girls to be passive and not ask questions; and if her school lacks resources such as books, especially books that appeal to children. Thus, improving opportunities for girls in rural Zimbabwe to go to school, to stay in school and to attend school regularly is very complex and complicated, as it is affected not only by a girl’s own perceptions of herself and her role in her family and wider community, but also by factors within her family, her school, and the wider community.

Environmental factors are also important to understand barriers to education in Zimbabwe that can intensify over time. Rural families rely on agriculture as a primary economic base. As families were unable to produce food, and as they made less money on farming due to the drought, they were less able to support their children’s education.  The cost of food increased and households were unable to purchase three daily meals. School enrolment and attendance declined, and children who did attend went to school hungry, severely hindering their ability to learn.  Some children were forced to drop out of school to work and help their families.

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