Mrs. Nomaqhawe Gwere is a practicing development worker who adds value, detail and growth to the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) as a Commissioner. She has a proven 19 years record in designing, managing and spearheading development frameworks that seek to champion civil society and community participation in inclusive and sustainable growth, peace building, conflict prevention, management, resolution and transformation, good governance, public social accountability and constitutionalism. She has immense experience and knowledge in coordinating and directing programs that bring together different thematic groups and social orientations and civil society working within diverse communities. In the last eight years she developed and implemented sound financial, logistical and administration systems for two start up programs, with multiple partners, staff and benefitting huge communities.  Where, she was able to design and coordinate the program that has a three-tier implementation focus, namely Community Mobilization, Capacity building and the Violence Prevention Mechanisms.

In the community mobilisation cluster of activities, she designed and coordinated the implementation of various activities focused on behaviour and attitude change of citizens at community level. The second tier of capacity building prioritised the strengthening of identified stakeholder groups which included traditional leadership, political party representatives and civil society members to engage effectively in building and sustaining peace at community and national level. Mrs. Gwere facilitated the development and standardization of training manuals in peacebuilding, conflict management and resolution as technical backstopping for civil society in peace building. Whilst in the third tier of Violence Prevention Mechanisms she was able to design and coordinate activities that strengthen existing violence prevention mechanisms as well as support the creation of new tools for combating violence both at national and community levels. At national level she designed and coordinated activities that created dialogue and engagement platforms between Church and Civil Society leaders and the various government organs lobbying for a bottom up approach in development of a coherent and inclusive national healing infrastructure in Zimbabwe. Therefore, she brings the added advantage of knowing who, what where (3W), of development to the NPRC work especially with a focus on cultivating state, non-state and community participation, collecting, collating and sharing of experiences amongst stakeholders.

Major accomplishments in Peace Building 2011-2021

1. Conflict Prevention program design, coordination and management

• Designed and coordinated the implementation of the behavior change peacebuilding programs in 10 provinces of Zimbabwe mainly targeting rural communities which are generally a political hot spot.
• Designed and coordinated the mapping of conflict indicators in “hot spots” in Zimbabwe and facilitating the mapping of the violence and conflict indicators in rural Zimbabwe as a tool for early warning and early response
• Developed and coordinated the implementation of bi-annual national peace dialogue forums between the church, civil society, other non-state actors and state actors.

1. Development of Preventive Action and conflict management tools for practitioners

• Designed, trained practitioners and coordinated the national baseline to understand the local traditional mechanisms of conflict prevention and peacebuilding in Zimbabwe.
• Coordinated the Church and Civil Society Forum first national healing discussion paper, which presented the imperatives for a national healing framework and consolidated the expectations of the Church and CSOs on the building blocks of a national peace framework for Zimbabwe.
• Coordinated the national research and dissemination of three papers on gender dynamics in national healing, the role of the church in violence and the role of traditional leadership in transitional justice in Zimbabwe.
• Coordinated the research and initiation of the establishment of a conflict early warning and early response for non-state actors.
• Coordinated the development of the Church and Civil Society Peacebuilding, conflict management and Advocacy training guide.

Through her work, she has proven that she is team leader and results who believes in diversity and inclusion of different stakeholders in development, the 19 years working in the development field, where she interfaced with various stakeholders made her cultural and context sensitive, when working within multi-cultural set ups. She understands the political, social and economic dynamics as experienced by Zimbabweans in their different settings.