Empowering Women through safe, resilient, gender responsive food markets and systems in response to COVID-19 in Zimbabwe

EMPOWERING WOMEN THROUGH SAFE, RESILIENT, GENDER RESPONSIVE FOOD MARKETS AND SYSTEMS IN RESPONSE TO COVID 19 IN ZIMBABWE Is a joint programme bringing together the UN Women, ILO and UNDP to implement the Safe markets project under the United Nations Country Team (UNCT’s) funded under the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund (MPTF) for COVID-19 Response and Recovery. The Programme will leverage on ongoing activities of agencies – to support government efforts towards decentralization/decongestion of mass markets through development of coordination mechanisms, whilst ensuring policies and frameworks are gender responsive as part of the national covid-19 response. The programme interventions will focus on vulnerable women vendors who operate in the informal sector and have lost their sources of livelihoods due to lockdown and disruption of food supply chains. The programme seeks to enhance the role and participation of women as key actors in the establishment and operationalization of resilient last mile distribution markets and systems that are safe, responsive to their needs and fully functional during the Covid-19 outbreak and beyond. This will be achieved through a twin approach. One dimension is the design and building of gender-responsive infrastructure compliant with occupational health and safety standards in response to COVID 19 whilst integrating dimensions responding to women’s concerns. The other dimension is supporting the economic and social empowerment of market vendors, in particular women, and strengthening of local government institutions and community leadership to become gender responsive. The ILO will implement an innovative programme on access to workspaces for those in the informal economy focusing on COVID-19 occupational safety and health for micro-enterprises and vendors. The will include working with the National Social Security Authority(NSSA) to support informal economy operators to enhance their productivity and profitability through various enterprise development interventions to achieve overall safe markets for communities in Bulawayo, Harare, Chinhoyi, Mutare and Masvingo. The key actions include identifying markets for OSH safe work improvements; mapping the sites and strategic gaps to inform design of Covid-19 focused OSH training and soft WASH infrastructure interventions (borehole, water & refuse management); training delivery for operators and informal economy workers in the identified sites and document emerging good practices and interventions for upscaling (develop a model intervention for Covid-19 in the informal economy).

Project symbol

ZWE/20/51/UND

Admin unit

CO-Harare

Start date

30/10/2020

End date

30/04/2022

Total allocation

136425

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

132574

Development Partners

Multi Partner Trust Fund Office, UNDP

Country/Countries

Zimbabwe

Outcomes

Outcome 7: Adequate and effective protection at work for all