by Patience Zirima – SANF 08 No 02
The SADC Gender Unit is preparing a plan for consultations throughout the region on the draft gender protocol to enable the involvement of all stakeholders.
The draft Protocol on Gender and Development is under review after the 2007 Summit of Heads of State and Government referred it back to SADC ministers responsible for gender to allow for further national consultations.
Consultations will be undertaken in the first half of 2008 so the protocol can be finalized and submitted to Summit in 2008.
A protocol is the most binding of SADC legal instruments and it is expected that the adoption of the protocol, which proposes specific targets and goals, will accelerate the achievement of gender equality in the region.
A strategic meeting of senior officials responsible for gender and women’s affairs in SADC member states was held in mid-December 2007 in Livingstone, Zambia as a first step in reviewing the draft.
Delegates stressed the importance of national consultations on the protocol so as to reach a consensus before it is resubmitted to Summit.
The meeting was convened to update senior officials on progress and to develop a framework for national activities to advance discussions on the draft.
The immediate action to be taken by the SADC Gender Unit towards this goal is to finalize the roadmap for national activities, including specific activities that will be undertaken, what partnerships will be entered into, and which stakeholders to consult, as well as setting timeframes for all the activities to be undertaken to ensure sufficiently wide consultations.
Magdeline Mathiba-Madibela, the Head of the SADC Gender Unit, underscored the importance of reviewing the draft so as to reach a consensus before it is resubmitted to Summit in 2008. She stressed that it is important to have a draft with a “high level of clarity, consciousness, and focus.”
Her comments arose amidst concerns that some sections of the draft protocol were ambiguous and cluttered resulting in Council of Ministers deleting or amending the draft for sections on Education and Training, Health, Peace Building and Conflict Resolution, Culture, Information and Sport, and on HIV and AIDS.
The meeting of senior officials considered the text and content of the draft, particularly sections that were deleted or amended at the Council of Ministers meeting in August 2007 and recommended a draft to be used in national consultations.
Among some of the amendments considered were deletions of issues such as globalization, marginalized groups, medical delay, non-formal education, post-exposure prophylaxis, socially excluded groups and universal access.
In the same vein, articles on elderly persons, persons with disability and on nationality and citizenship were deleted.
Other changes made in the draft protocol were meant to address overlaps with existing protocols or declarations such as the Protocol on Education and Training, the Protocol on Health, the Maseru Declaration on HIV and AIDS, the United Nations Council Resolution 1325 on Peace building, Peace making and Peace keeping, and the Protocol on Culture, Information and Sport.
These changes point to challenges with articulating gender issues in the protocol and therefore there is need to set a clear conceptual framework of what the Protocol on Gender and Development should contain and why.
The meeting highlighted the need to have a clear understanding of the engendered dimensions of certain issues such as those of disability and elderly persons and suggested that SADC Secretariat come up with a conceptual framework on the protocol.
Delegates at the meeting also defined which key stakeholders need to be involved from the beginning of the process such as SADC senior officials, officials from ministries of justice, foreign affairs, finance, members of parliament, and development partners.
Involving all key stakeholders will ensure that all parties make an input into the process and that any misunderstandings on the document are removed before presentation to Summit for approval.
Senior officials agreed on the need to strategize on how best national consultations should be handled so that all stakeholders take ownership of the protocol.
