The ManicaPost
Tendai Gukutikwa
Post Reporter
MINISTER of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Advocate Misheck Mugadza said the Second Republic is walking the talk and fulfilling all its promises on disability empowerments.
Speaking during a disability mainstreaming and inclusion workshop held in Mutare on Tuesday, Minister Mugadza said disability is cross-cutting all the 14 pillars of the National Development Strategy (NDS1).
“A clarion call has been made to mainstream and include disability in national development. As a result, significant work has been done since the adoption of the Disability Policy,” he said.
Minister Mugadza hailed President Mnangagwa for driving the disability mainstreaming and inclusion agenda, which has seen the country making tremendous progress towards the empowerment of PWDs in line with Vision 2030.
“Through President Mnangagwa’s leadership, Zimbabwe has made remarkable progressive strides towards the empowerment of persons with disabilities in line with Vision 2030. This has been strengthened by the whole of Government approach, which seeks that no person and no place is left behind in national development,” he said.
Minister Mugadza said persons with disabilities have rights to social participation, inclusion, education up to tertiary level, housing delivery and health provision, land and mine allocations, social protection, and presidential inputs and livestock schemes.
Director for Disability in the Office of the Special Advisor on National Disability Issues in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Mr Macnon Chirinzepi said there is need to expedite advancements, while embracing innovative and practical measures that are inclusive of disabilities in order to achieve Vision 2030.
He said the acceleration will see targets outlined in Vision 2030 being met by 2028.
Speaking in an interview with The Manica Post on the sidelines of the workshop, Mr Chirinzepi said: “We cannot attain our targets if people with disabilities are left behind. We are enlightening and re-awakening ourselves towards the urgency with which we want to reach out to our 2030 vision targets, earlier than envisaged in 2028, which means we have to go a gear up and mainstream disability and include everyone from the grassroots.”
Mr Chirinzepi said there is need to mainstream and include disability in the formulation of policies and planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of Government programmes in the country.
“We are also enlightening each other on the importance of strengthening coordination in line with the whole of economy and society approach in disability responsive programming and implementing the National Development Strategy (NDS1), with disability as a cross-cutting element, while sharing experiences, practices, embrace diversity and target the 15 percent quota in disability programming.
“As a country, we are moving away from the charity model as we now want to have a society where persons with disabilities are also at the upper echelons of economic production. They should be part of Vision 2030, and we cannot achieve that by relying on traditional approaches like the charity model.
“We have to move ahead and look at wholesome approaches like the social model of disability which looks at how society is having an impact on the way people should think of and approach disability,” he said.
The representative of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in Senate, Senator Ishmael Zhou said there is need for social transformation and paradigm shift from the charity and personal tragedy models to the participatory and people-centred social and human rights models of disability.
“These are the models we should look at and embrace since they are emancipatory and address all fundamental freedoms of empowerment. We are glad that the Government has been empowering us as persons with disabilities and placing us in decision-making positions.
“We are in every part of the devolution structure, and that is something commendable. Zimbabwe has become an example to many countries because PWDs have represented our country in some international events and summits, and that is very commendable,” he said.
The workshop was attended by responsible directors and focal persons from all Government ministries.
