September – December 2024
It has been another period of hard work at SIVIO Institute. We are excited to complete the year as a team, having been involved in several exciting projects. This newsletter outlines some of these exciting projects since September 2024.
In our Research and Knowledge Generation portfolio, we proudly launched Rhetoric and Reality: An Assessment of the Zimbabwe Government’s Performance (Sept 2023 – Aug 2024). This report is based on data captured on our zimcitizenswatch.org tracking platform which covers 19 thematic areas and 228 policy promises. The corresponding African Citizens Watch platform, which assesses the policy promises from governments in the region, grew significantly during this time with additional team members for Zambia, Malawi, South Africa and most recently Botswana. You can keep track of our progress and assess policy promises from African governments here: africancitizenswatch.org
Also, in our research portfolio, we published the fourth volume of the African Journal of Inclusive Societies titled Africa’s Quest for Inclusion: Trends and Patterns. The articles focus on financial inclusion, political inclusion, disinformation, the inclusion of women in the political arena and the challenges faced by migrating Africans in diaspora communities.
You can review some of the other exciting thought pieces we have published including a personal reflection on the impact of the collapse of Zimbabwe’s healthcare system. This opinion piece delves into the personal challenges experienced by ordinary Zimbabweans with failing health delivery. We completed data collection for our annual Citizen’s Perceptions and Expectations survey in October for Zimbabwe. We have been running this citizens’ perception survey since 2018. We look forward to the publication of the 2024 Citizens Perceptions and Expectations Report in 2025. In response to developments on land tenure in Zimbabwe, we published an opinion piece by Tendai Murisa related to the changes in land ownership arrangements for freehold land affecting millions of Zimbabweans. We followed this up with a dialogue on land tenure in Zimbabwe hosted at the Cresta Lodge in Harare, Zimbabwe and attended by significant contributors to land tenure conversations in the country.
The What If…We Think Differently? podcast series featuring Tendai Murisa and Nontsikelelo Nzula launched a new series on African Philanthropy with five episodes. Our conversations focused on the practice, mechanisms, and agents of African Philanthropy. You can watch the episodes on our YouTube platform, SIVIO TV. We found ourselves in new podcast spaces, including The Friday Drinks Show, discussing the annual performance assessment report for the Zimbabwean Government.
We helped support various communities of practice and networks. This included the Community Foundations Network of Zimbabwe, made up of 12 community foundations from across Zimbabwe. We supported them to hold their second in-person meeting on 4 November 2024 and to participate in the 4th African Philanthropy Network Assembly. In addition, we completed our 11-month training incubation with 16 women and youth activists who were part of our Building a Concerted Movement of Youths and Women for Democracy and Development initiative. This capacity-building initiative concluded with an advocacy training in Harare on the 10th of December, which also doubled as a certification ceremony for the participants.
Our last quarter had numerous regional interactions as the team travelled and engaged in several strategic conversations, including the 4th African Philanthropy Network Assembly in Victoria Falls in November, a conversation on the Government of National Unity in South Africa in partnership with ACT Ubumbano, a panel discussion on digital inclusion and financial inclusion at the Mozilla House Festival Zambia conference held in Lusaka, and training on advocacy and Community Engagement for residents associations, community-based organisations and media organisations in Harare in partnership with the International Republican Institute. Our team also had the privilege of attending the Living Rights Festival in Cape Town, South Africa, in October, hosted by the Institute for African Alternatives. Dr Murisa was part of the panel conversation discussing “Holding the powerful to account in Africa.”
Although we did not win, we are proud to have been nominated for a Communicator of the Year 2024 award in the NANGO 44th Annual Awards held in Nyanga, Zimbabwe. In October, the SIVIO Institute team partnered with Shamwari Yemwanasikana to distribute reusable sanitary pads (made by the Chiedza Community Welfare Trust) to school girls in Mbare. In case you missed it we have just ended a campaign for the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence Campaign through AfricaGiving. During the campaign, we highlighted 14 organisations working across the continent to address gender-based violence. Even though the campaign has ended their needs remain, you can still support the organisations here: https://bio.site/africagiving
Find out more about our work.
Leave a Reply