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Making HIV Prevention, Care, Treatment and Support a Constitutional Issue in Zimbabwe: Amplifying voices of PLHIV

The Zimbabwe National Network of People living with HIV (ZNNP+) with technical support from SAfAIDS is implementing a project titled ‘Making HIV Prevention, Care, Treatment and Support a Constitutional Issue in Zimbabwe: Amplifying the voices of People living with HIV’. The goal of the project is to ensure that the voices and priorities of people living with HIV, especially women and young people, are reflected in Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Reform Process.

 

This is a project that recognises that there are nearly 2 million people living with HIV (PLHIV) in Zimbabwe and their views need to be captured and needs paid attention to in the new ‘people-driven’ Constitution.

 

Currently, Zimbabwe is undergoing a Constitutional Reform Process which was sanctioned by the Global Political Agreement (GPA) signed in September 2008 by the three main political parties in Zimbabwe, ZANU-PF and the two formations of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In Article 6 the GPA establishes a 19 month constitution-making process through which a new democratic Constitution of Zimbabwe is to be established.

 

In section 3 of the Zimbabwe Constitution, it is highlighted that the Constitution is the supreme law of Zimbabwe and therefore it should be a document that is wholly reflective of all sectors of the population of the nation. As such, the project seeks to unify and thus amplify the voices of PLHIV and create consensus on the issues of PLHIV to be included in the Constitution.

 

In order to achieve the project goal, the activities for implementation include;

  1. One day consultative meeting
  2. Twenty provincial policy dialogues
  3. One national policy dialogues
  4. Production of a DVD showcasing the process and findings from provincial and national level dialogues.

The first of these activities is set to take place on the 20th January 2010 in Harare, Zimbabwe where ZNNP+ coordinators will be briefed on the project and develop implementation plans for the provincial policy dialogues, dates for which will be set in that meeting. Once all provincial dialogues have been held, a national dialogue will be held through which the views of PLHIV gathered at provincial level will be discussed further, synchronized. From this national level dialogue the views of PLHIV will be presented to members of the Parliamentary Select Committee for inclusion in the draft Constitution.

 

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