Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU)

The Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU) is an independent, non-governmental organization in Zimbabwe. Its mission is to provide high-quality research for the purposes of relevant and current policy change. RAU’s work to date has focused on three major areas that are important in the current crisis in Zimbabwe: women, displacements, and governance. RAU works with a wide variety of Zimbabwean, regional, and international partners in connection with the above areas. RAU also provides independent analyses of important current issues in Zimbabwe, including elections, the Global Political Agreement, and legal matters. Founded in 2006, RAU has produced over 80 reports and opinion pieces on a wide variety of topics. RAU is a member of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum and has a long-standing partnership with Idasa.

RAU also runs a program for assisting victims of organized violence and torture, the Tree of Life (ToL). The program revolves around a victim-to-victim healing and empowerment process, and, to date, has assisted over 800 individuals, begun community assistance to four communities, provided training to 11 organizations, and trained 62 facilitators. ToL itself has directly assisted 289 survivors.

RAU and WITNESS have collaborated to produce two videos that focus on the prevention and policy-based remediation of gender-based violence in Zimbabwe.