Bulawayo: The City Councilhas embarked on a programme to tailor its budget to the specific needs of women and men. Gender budgeting is a means of understanding how public resources are utilized and how they benefit different groups of people including poor women and men, girls and boys and other marginalized groups such as people with disabilities. At a conference held at Bulawayo Small City Hall, the Deputy Mayor Amen Mpofu said there was need to address the issue of segregation and gender-based violence. "It is important to address these issues because they will cause problems in the future," he said.

Bulawayo Mayor Thaba Moyo said the issue of gender budgeting was important to the local authority because there was a lot of work needed to empower the poor, especially women.

"We need to do some research work in order to come up with the right recommendations. It is women, especially, who should be researched so that we get to understand what they want. The imbalance is historical. Research work has to be done and resources allocated. All political parties, in the Global Political Agreement (GPA), have always said they want 50 per cent but how do women get there? They lack qualifications and resources. We should get resources, identify those weaknesses and address them," he said.

The Zimbabwe Women's Resources Council and Network (ZWRCN) Director, Lindiwe Ngwenya, said she agreed that gender programmes had for too long been biased towards men at the expense of women and there was a need to balance that.