PACDEF Profile

PACDEF PROFILE

PACDEF stands for Peace-Building and Capacity Development Foundation. It is a Zimbabwean registered Trust whose liabilities are limited to its assets. PACDEF’s core business is peace-building and capacity development. PACDEF is an expression of the desire to empower community leaders to handle conflict situations and build peace thereby creating an environment conducive for development.

VISION

PACDEF envisions a community of peace loving people who manage their conflicts peacefully and have a leadership that is informed, and has integrity; a leadership that is aware of its rights and obligations, one that facilitates the community’s meaningful participation in the social, economic, environmental and cultural development.

MISSION

PACDEF’s mission is to enhance leadership capacity to lead democratically, manage conflicts peacefully, build peace, and meaningfully facilitate in issues of economic, social – including gender and HIV/ AIDS –, cultural and environmental development. This will be done through training, advocacy and lobbying, sport, information sharing, and the distribution of peace promotion materials.

OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

• Strengthening democratic leadership capacity and conflict management competencies at community level with special focus on traditional leaders.
• Strengthening community structures and people’s concept of democracy, in order to enable them to critically follow their elected representatives and traditional leaders in their official roles.
• Mainstreaming gender and HIV/ AIDS into community workshops and all other PACDEF activities.
• Offering support for the establishment and organizational development of PACDEF in order to consolidate and secure for it democratic and transparent structures.

PACDEF STRUCTURE

PACDEF’s structure consists of a 12 member Board of Trustees and a Secretariat. The Board of Trustees has a chairperson. The Board has four committees: Finance Committee, Technical/ Projects Committee, Human Resources Committee, and Legal and Audit Committee. The Board is the policy-making organ of PACDEF.

The Secretariat on the other hand is responsible for policy and programs implementation. The Executive Director of PACDEF heads the Secretariat which is composed of a team of six permanent employees, namely: the Program Manager, the Finance and Administration Officer, the Accounting Assistant, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, the Secretary/ Receptionist and the Driver/ Messenger. In addition, PACDEF has ten Field Officers responsible for peace-building and community empowerment programs.

TARGET GROUP

PACDEF’s initial target groups are the communities in the district of Mutare in Manicaland Province in Eastern Zimbabwe. Within the communities, the program is directed primarily towards local leaders focusing traditional leaders in particular. Over its entire duration, the project will be expanded to include more districts within the above mentioned province with the possibility of going beyond in the future.

STRATEGIES

PACDEF employs the following strategies to realize its vision and mission: lobbying, formation of peace-building committees, leadership training, gender and HIV/ AIDS mainstreaming, networking, victim support and rehabilitation, research and documentation, and sport.

PROJECT ACTIVITIES

• Selection and recruitment of field officers/ community trainers
• Induction of community
• Situation analysis
• Strategic planning and project design workshop
• Training of community trainers
• Lobbying and advocacy
• Training of community leaders
• Follow-up activities
• Refresher courses
• Public peace-building meetings
• Assistance to victims of violence
• Material production and distribution
• Coordination
• Staff development
• Monitoring and evaluation.