Zimbabwe Plans Women-Only Quotas for Construction Tenders

By: Women Entrepreneurs Review Team | Friday, 11 September 2026

The Government of Zimbabwe is planning to implement measures to reserve selected construction tenders specifically for women-owned businesses, in a move aimed at expanding the role of female entrepreneurs in the infrastructure development sector. The implementation is intended to promote participation of women entrepreneurs in the construction industry. This will enable women enterprises to access Government construction opportunities.

Joy Makumbe, Engineer and Permanent Secretary in Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development, Zimbabwe stated that this move will provide more opportunities for women to engage in the building of infrastructure. The provision will allow women entrepreneurs to develop their skills, grow in size and become actively involved in the development of the country’s infrastructure.

Key Highlights:

• Government considers women-only quotas in construction tenders
• Women entrepreneurs urged to register and bid for infrastructure projects
• Joint ventures could help women access larger construction contracts

Engineer Joy advised that the female entrepreneurs exploit the opportunities arising from the construction and infrastructure sector by ensuring that their businesses are registered and that they are ready to tender for Government contracts. She encouraged women to overcome the perception of construction industry being male dominated and get thus involved in the construction projects taking place in the country. Participation in the Government infrastructure projects, according to her, could help the women-owned companies to expand and get experience in the industry.

While highlighting the growing success of women contractors she added, “We have women contractors who are actually bidding for the work and getting the contracts, do the work and finish it before the male contractors. Each time we have events as the ministry, we make it a point that we invite these women to talk and share their experiences. We want to see more women participating in construction. It is a fact that women do not have capital and when we ask for title deeds most women do not have. It means we are locking them out of those contracts at the grassroots,”

It is essential for women to invest in building the capacity of their enterprises, comply with government procurement rules and explore possibilities of strategic partnerships in order to enhance their capability of undertaking major projects.

The program would provide women’s growth and change with wider economic opportunities through increased involvement of women in the construction of public infrastructure. The inclusion of women in the construction of roads, bridges, buildings, and various development projects would result in a more inclusive construction industry.

“If we do not see something and realise that an opportunity is there, people tend to chicken out and think that it does not happen. There have not been many women contractors that have been doing any work in Zimbabwe. Whether one is capable or not they just say I do not think I can pull through as men are already there doing the construction.” she said.

Talking about joint ventures and women-only tenders to boost women’s participation in construction Engineer Joy emphasized, “We have been preaching the issue of joint ventures encouraging women to come up together as three or four companies and then bid. We have made progress on the process to introduce quotas on some tenders, which will be exclusively for women. These are some of the strides we have taken to empower women. Besides construction there is also the consulting part of construction where women can do the designs, which is cleaner as most women prefer clean jobs,”