SANF 06 No 108
Southern Africa has started consultations that will lead to the development of a protocol on gender and accelerate the implementation of regional commitments to create equal opportunities for women and men.
The first draft of the Protocol on Gender and Development was reviewed and endorsed by ministers responsible for gender or women’s affairs in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), at a meeting in Maseru, Lesotho at the end of November.
The ministers said the process to develop a SADC Protocol on Gender and Development is a practical demonstration that the region is prepared to translate its commitments into action for the attainment of gender equality.
Lesotho Deputy Prime Minister, Lesao Lehohla, noted that, while SADC recorded encouraging milestones in promoting gender equality and equity, the pace of implementing commitments to gender needed to speed up.
“Progress towards achieving gender equality in the region is taking place at a slow pace and in an inconsistent manner,” said Lehohla when he officially opened the ministers’ meeting in Maseru.
The SADC Executive Secretary, Tomaz Augusto Salomão, said the region was committed to promoting gender equality and equity in order to realise sustainable and equitable economic growth and socio-economic development.
He challenged member states to continually review their efforts, plans and instruments to ensure that they are robust and focused to ensure that obstacles to women’s participation in all spheres of public life are removed.
The draft protocol will now be subjected to national consultations involving the relevant stakeholders from each SADC member state.
This will ensure that the input and contributions from a wider cross-section of citizens in member states are captured and consolidated into a final draft to be presented for adoption at the SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government in August/September 2007 in Lusaka, Zambia.
In 1997, southern African leaders signed the SADC Declaration on Gender and Development in which they committed themselves to place gender firmly on the agenda of the SADC Programme of Action and Community Building Initiatives.
The Declaration was followed up with an Addendum on the Prevention and Eradication of Violence Against Women and Children in 1998.
The idea to transform the SADC Declaration on Gender and Development and its Addendum into a protocol was first discussed by SADC ministers responsible for gender or women’s affairs at a meeting in Maputo in 2001.
This was with reference to Article 26 in the Addendum which calls for the urgent adoption of legally binding SADC instruments to ensure that commitments are translated into tangible actions.
A protocol was identified as the most binding of SADC legal instruments, which would accelerate the implementation of gender commitments.
The regional protocol will allow the rationalisation and enhancement of existing commitments to gender equality, as well as provision of accountability and monitoring mechanisms where it matters most “close to home”.
New gender-related challenges – including HIV and AIDS, globalisation and trafficking in humans, especially women and children – have emerged and need to be encompassed in the gender policy instruments for SADC.
The meeting provided a platform for ministers to share experiences and challenges, motivate and learn from one another as they drive the implementation of gender commitments in their respective countries.
It was attended by ministers from Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The Democratic Republic of Congo and Madagascar complete the SADC membership.
