News / National
ZELA sign MoU with the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission
10 Jun 2015 at 07:08hrs | Views
The Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) on the 4th of June 2015 as part of its multi-stakeholder engagement strategy.
ZELA announced the development saying under this MoU, it partners the ZHRC in capacity strengthening, community and stakeholder engagement, public awareness, research and documentation on issues related to environmental, economic, social and cultural rights especially for mining communities.
"Expected outcomes from this partnership include: strengthened capacity of the ZHRC and the thematic working group on environmental, social and cultural rights, increased public awareness on the work of the ZHRC and its grievance redress mechanisms and ultimately increased access to justice and better governance in the environment and natural resources sector," reads ZELA statement.
Speaking on the signing of the MoU, Mutuso Dhliwayo ZELA's Director said, "This (MoU) is one of the steps that ZELA took towards its strategic vision of ensuring improved engagement with all stakeholders in the natural resource governance sector, especially those that have an obligation of ensuring communities have access to and can enjoy their rights as enshrined in the constitution".
To give life to this MoU, ZELA and ZHRC shall be implementing a Finnish Embassy supported project based on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights whose thrust is to assist in fulfilling the commission's mandate to protect, respect and ensure remedy to communities whose rights would have been violated in the context of business operations in the mining sector.
This agreement comes barely a month after the signing of yet another MoU with the parliament of Zimbabwe, something that ZELA has described as key for policy advocacy and lobbying with the parliament whose function is to play a representative, oversight and legislative role.
ZELA also recently participated during the Annual General Meeting for the Zimbabwe Chamber of mines were they were requested to share from a Civil Society Organisations' perspective, how mining benefits can be shared with stakeholders like communities who bear the greatest burden in terms of negative impacts from the exploitation of mineral resources from their localities. In its presentation ZELA acknowledged that although it is doubtful that communities could ever share the same vision with mining companies, there is a possibility of them having shared benefits from the exploitation of minerals.
It is the hope of ZELA that through these various engagements the community's voice is amplified and that policy, legal and institutional reforms and implementation is driven by the need to advance the community's rights.
ZELA announced the development saying under this MoU, it partners the ZHRC in capacity strengthening, community and stakeholder engagement, public awareness, research and documentation on issues related to environmental, economic, social and cultural rights especially for mining communities.
"Expected outcomes from this partnership include: strengthened capacity of the ZHRC and the thematic working group on environmental, social and cultural rights, increased public awareness on the work of the ZHRC and its grievance redress mechanisms and ultimately increased access to justice and better governance in the environment and natural resources sector," reads ZELA statement.
Speaking on the signing of the MoU, Mutuso Dhliwayo ZELA's Director said, "This (MoU) is one of the steps that ZELA took towards its strategic vision of ensuring improved engagement with all stakeholders in the natural resource governance sector, especially those that have an obligation of ensuring communities have access to and can enjoy their rights as enshrined in the constitution".
To give life to this MoU, ZELA and ZHRC shall be implementing a Finnish Embassy supported project based on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights whose thrust is to assist in fulfilling the commission's mandate to protect, respect and ensure remedy to communities whose rights would have been violated in the context of business operations in the mining sector.
This agreement comes barely a month after the signing of yet another MoU with the parliament of Zimbabwe, something that ZELA has described as key for policy advocacy and lobbying with the parliament whose function is to play a representative, oversight and legislative role.
ZELA also recently participated during the Annual General Meeting for the Zimbabwe Chamber of mines were they were requested to share from a Civil Society Organisations' perspective, how mining benefits can be shared with stakeholders like communities who bear the greatest burden in terms of negative impacts from the exploitation of mineral resources from their localities. In its presentation ZELA acknowledged that although it is doubtful that communities could ever share the same vision with mining companies, there is a possibility of them having shared benefits from the exploitation of minerals.
It is the hope of ZELA that through these various engagements the community's voice is amplified and that policy, legal and institutional reforms and implementation is driven by the need to advance the community's rights.
Source - Byo24News
