Enhancing Governance and Women’s Rights: Zimbabwe’s Path in the APRM

In 2020, Zimbabwe became a member of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), an African Union (AU) initiative aimed at fostering good governance within African nations. This move occurred nearly two decades after the establishment of the APRM in 2003, prompting many of the country’s critics to question how it would perform within the APRM framework, considering its unfavourable track record on governance issues. At this stage, it would be too ambitious to expect much about how Zimbabwe has fared since joining the body, but perhaps the processes and strategies adopted since then to prepare the country for its first review are worth noting. These strategies stem from the work of civil society organisations. These organisations seem to be playing a crucial role in raising awareness among various state organs and alerting member states to key governance problem areas that states need to consider and reform as APRM members. In this chapter, I focus particularly on the promotion and protection of women’s rights, their representation, and their involvement in politics and the economy in Zimbabwe as the country prepares for its first review. To do this, I conduct a desktop review of academic and non-academic sources, particularly in the last decade and a half. In this review, I provide a general overview of the status of women in Zimbabwe, to show where the country stands regarding women’s rights in their political and economic representation, since joining the APRM. Secondly, I provide insight into the country’s strategies to promote women’s rights in terms of political representation and public participation as the country works towards the APRM review. Finally, through the work of civil society organisations, I shed light on Zimbabwe’s journey in the APRM in its few years of membership.