It is with excitement and great anticipation that I take the button stick of driving the mammoth task of championing the gender agenda in Africa at and through Women’s University in Africa from the co-founder and founding Vice Chancellor Professor Hope Cynthia Sadza.  My passion has always been to see a transformation of social and gender norms promoting gender inequality through first of all a transformation of the institutions that act as gatekeepers to these norms, for which education plays a pivotal role. Africa’s gender parity stands at 0.58 (1 would be full parity) and it can take 140 years for the continent to achieve full parity without drastic action (McKinsey’s Power of Parity: Advancing Women’s Equality in Africa Report). Closing the gender gap in all spheres of life is urgent globally and especially in Africa where women and girls face the risk of being left behind-millions are not in school, and 4 million may never set their foot in a classroom.  Africa is at the forefront in the discourse and fight against gender inequality and gender transformative disruption through fostering an enabling environment for gender equality and gender lens investing, ensuring girls’ and women’s participation and voice and breaking the ‘cement ceiling’ for women’s leadership among others. The strides in promoting gender equality across various sectors are there for all to see yet the gender gap still persists.  It is in this light, that Women’s University in Africa exists to foster gender equality in and through university education.

Through its Gender Centre, the University will play a very important role of supporting the continent with high quality rigorous research to facilitate use of evidence in programme and policy decisions. Our Gender Centre among other things, aims at promoting evidence based programming by governments, development partners, the private sector and other players in addressing the underlying causes of gender inequality in Africa. It will do this by delivering a new body of evidence and developing a compelling narrative geared towards various stakeholders on what works and what does not in promoting gender equality. This evidence will deepen capacity for informed policy making and innovations in Africa.

My tour around the Women’s University in Africa’s Manresa campus and other satellite campuses in Zimbabwe has clearly demonstrated that the university has grown in strides since its inception. The infrastructure at the Manresa campus has pushed us nearer to our goal of reducing rented rooms and ensuring that all infrastructure remains stable and of high quality. To move with the times, there is need for the University to establish an Industrial Zone which will create a self-sustaining ecosystem that will ensure the University’s infrastructure is remodeled, renovated and refurbished at the same time ensuring a renewed investment in ICT infrastructure to support the demands for online teaching and learning. It is my humble appeal to our over 10 500 alumni in positions of influence, together with the partners and friends of WUA that we put our heads together to invest in the University to be the best institute in Africa,  that is unique and steadily leaving indelible footprints in addressing gender disparities.

I am proud that the Women’s University in Africa has made great strides in giving the African woman a second chance to the golden opportunity of university education. With our main campus in Zimbabwe located in Marondera and various satellites of the University established and running in Harare, Kadoma, Mutare and Bulawayo, we offer economically viable and competitive programmes. In Southern Africa, our reach and influence is in Botswana, Malawi and Zambia. Our aim is to increase our influence and reach to more African nations – our efforts are invigorated by this noble cause of addressing gender disparities and affording women access to university education.

Yes – We won’t sleep as we strive for this gender agenda.

I thank you.

Professor Sunungurai Dominica Chingarande

In 2020, Dr Elizabeth Chikwiri attained an Associate Professorship from the Women’s University in Africa. Associate Professor Elizabeth Chikwiri is the University’s Pro Vice Chancellor responsible for Academic Affairs.  She joined WUA as a part time lecturer in 2006. Her career started as a primary school teacher in 1983 and she rose up the ladder to become Head Teacher in 1993, Lecturer and subsequently Lecturer – in – Charge at Seke Teacher’s College.  She then joined WUA as a part time lecturer in 2006 and was confirmed full time lecturer in 2007.  In 2008 she was promoted to the post of Faculty Coordinator in the Faculty of Social Sciences.  She became the Acting Dean of the same Faculty in 2010 and later she was appointed Dean of Studies of the University in 2011.  This was a position to oversee three Faculties of the University namely:

• Agriculture;
• Management & Entrepreneurship and Information Technology;
• Social Sciences.

She rose up the ladder to become Pro Vice Chancellor Academic, a position she currently holds.  She has not only led by example but has become a role model in the lecture room.  She joined WUA when it had only done one graduation ceremony of 137 graduates.  Since that year the University has held 15 graduation ceremonies and has produced 9,128 graduates of whom 7,001 are females.  Student enrolment was at 1,160 in 2006 and now stands at 5,600.  Professor Chikwiri’s former Faculty of Social and Gender Transformative Sciences is the biggest Faculty of the University.  She joined WUA when the Faculty had two programmes, namely Sociology and Psychology.  The Faculty has grown to 15 programmes under three departments as follows:

• Continuing Education
• Gender & Transformative Sciences
• Social Sciences
• Health Sciences (which is being surrogated by the Social Sciences Department)

She managed to grow the Faculty both in terms of programmes, departments and partners.  One key partner to note is UNICEF, which is providing technical support and scholarships under the Child Sensitive Social Polices programme.  The programme has empowered legislators and organisations dealing with child rights and children’s issues as well as law enforcement agencies.  Over and above the PhD programmes being offered, the Faculty of Social and Gender Transformative Sciences now offers six Masters Programmes, namely:

• MSc in Development Studies
• MSc in Child Sensitive Social Policies;
• MA in Strategic Communication;
• MSc in Sociology and Gender Studies;
• MSc in Disaster and Livelihood Studies; and
• MEd in Early Childhood Development

Associate Professor Elizabeth Chikwiri was appointed Pro Vice Chancellor Academic effective 1 October 2016.  She has provided support to the Vice Chancellor Professor Hope Cynthia Sadza in leading, guiding and growing the main campus in Harare as well as satellite campuses in Bulawayo, Kadoma, Marondera and Mutare.  The University has also penetrated Malawi and Zambia largely on Open and Distance Learning format.  Associate Professor Chikwiri holds a PhD in Education from the University of South Africa, Master of Education Degree and a Bachelor of Education Degree from the University of Zimbabwe.

Associate Professor Chikwiri is a well published scholar in refereed journals and has contributed book chapters.  She is an external examiner of PhD theses for regional universities.  She also has done commissioned researches, independent researches, collaborative researches largely on areas of gender-based violence, child development, child marriages, open and distance learning, violence in primary schools and gender interactions in the classroom among other areas to do with women and children.

Rodgers Murehwa is a holder of a Bachelor of Arts in Accountancy/Economics degree from the University of Botswana, and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Zimbabwe. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Governance and Accountancy Institute of Zimbabwe formerly Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, a Registered Public Accountant (RPAcc.) and a Registered Tax Accountant (RTAcc.) William is also a member of the Zimbabwe Institute of Management (MZIM).

William has over 40 years progressive and hands-on experience in Finance, Planning, Administration, Project Management and Human Resources. He is also a well accomplished management consultant in commerce and industry as well as in higher education management.

Currently William is the Bursar of the Women’s University in Africa.

Prior to his appointment to the position of Bursar he occupied the position of Operations Director in the Vice Chancellor’s Office at the Women’s University in Africa (WUA) where he was in charge of the day-to-day activities of the University at the direction of the Vice Chancellor.

Before his appointment to the position of Operations Director in the Vice Chancellor’s Office he had served the Women’s University in Africa for 7 years as the Project Coordinator for the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) funded Project worth USD3,000,000.

Before joining WUA William had been a Management Consultant with the Business Training and Development Consultancy Services (Pvt) Ltd. Previously, he had a 17-year stint with the University of Zimbabwe which he joined as an Assistant Bursar-Planning and rose through the ranks to Director of Planning and then to Bursar/Finance Director. William started off his working career 40 years ago as a Tax Assessor with the Ministry of Finance Economic Planning and Development.

For over 40 years William has taught Finance and Economics courses on part time basis at various universities in Zimbabwe and also offered tutorials to University of South Africa (UNISA) Management College of South Africa (MANCOSA) students based in Zimbabwe.

William currently serves on the following Boards:

• Brian Justice Petroleum (Pvt) Ltd-Board Chairman
• Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU) Board Member
• Chartered Governance and Accountancy Institute of Zimbabwe Examination Review Panel
• Anglican University in Zimbabwe Council
• Finance Committee of the Anglican Diocese of Harare (CPCA)
• Provincial Standing Committee Member of the Anglican Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA).

William is married to Shamiso and has three children and six grandchildren.

Plaxedes Chaitezvi is the Women’s University in Africa Librarianwith effect from 1 December 2021. She leads efforts to cultivate information services that support the teaching and research of the Women’s University in Africa community and the international community of scholars. She administers the Women’s University in Africa Libraries system, comprised of five libraries and a state-of-the-art, repository. She also works closely with the university’s deans to ensure that the libraries are contributing fully to Women’s University in Africa teaching and research initiatives.

Women’s University in Africa Libraries is a private library with over 25 000 volumes of resources in a variety of formats.

Prior to being named University Librarian in December 2021, Chaitezvi served as Sub Librarian and eventually Deputy Librarian of Women’s University.

Ms Chaitezvi was a member of the Intellectual Property Advisory Council where she participated in the Zimbabwean Government ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty and approval of the National Intellectual Property Policy and Implementation Strategy. She was also the Country Coordinator of the Intellectual Property issues in the Librarianship arena. She was also the Country Coordinator of the Open Access Movement. She is currently a member of the ZIBF Program and Logistics Committee Member; the Zimbabwe Universities Libraries Consortium (ZULC): Zimbabwe Library Association and Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR).

Her research interests include Open Educational Resources and the Open Science movement and digitalics.

Previously, Ms Chaitezvi was the Multimedia Librarian for Radio and Broadcasting Services in Botswana.  In this role, she designed, implemented, coordinated, and established 5 multimedia libraries; she also trained fellow librarians in preservation and preservation of various media formats.

Ms Chaitezvi completed her dissertation entitled, “Factors affecting adoption of Open Educational Resources by Zimbabwean Universities” at the National University of Science and Technology in fulfilment of her MSc.  She earned her Post Graduate Diploma in Library and Information Science from University of Botswana and also holds a BA in Economic History from University of Zimbabwe.  Prior to a career in librarianship, Ms Chaitezvi taught History in Zimbabwe public High school.