To coincide with international women’s day and preparations for the fourth UN World Conference for Women, SARDC is pleased to announce the launch of the Women in Development (WID) Southern African Awareness Project.
This project, for the documentation, analysis and dissemination of information on regional issue, comes at a time when greater efforts are being made at national and regional levels to advance the status of women.
The WID Southern Africa Project aims to collect and organise information in such a way that it is readily available and easily accessible for analysis and presentation toward the development of policy frameworks by governmental and non-governmental development agencies and organizations, social movements, unions, media, cooperatives and women’s organisations throughout the region.
The availability of this resource should enable wider understanding of the complex and interdependent factors which affect the position of women in southern Africa, as well as how their different needs must be considered toward long-term sustainable development.
Despite constituting over half of the population, women still remain a largely marginalized group in the continually changing socio-economic and political reality of the southern African region.
Development planning continues to be carried out without their voices being heard and with little analysis of how policy frameworks affect their position in account and as a result they have little access to the means of development.
This is the feminization of poverty and it will continue unless women take a voice and create an awareness of their importance in the overall development of nations.
In attempting to raise awareness of the status of the women in the region, much research and analysis has already been carried out by local and international researchers. However, the scattered nature of this information has meant that it is difficult to access and often not available for use by its target audiences.
In order to make this information readily accessible, the WID Southern Africa project will provide a data base and library on the status of women and development in the region. This library and database will be accessible to government, non-governmental and other agencies and organizations dealing with the issue of WID as well as researchers who will be able to do on-line searching and review of literature.
The WID Southern Africa Project will run for three years and its objectives are mainly targeted at and will relevant to two specific events within that period — the Africa region Preparatory Meeting for the UN Fourth World Conference on Women and the Conference itself.
In November 1994 the Africa region will convene in Dakar to review and appraise progress made in implementing in Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies adopted at the Third UN Conference for Women held in Nairobi in 1985.
The UN Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace, will be held in Beijing, China, in September 1995.
‘The first two years of the project will be devoted to gathering and putting together information for these two events in the form of WID Country Profiles and the final year will be aimed at updating and publishing the information, including the information derived from the Beijing conference. Publications will include report on the Status of Women in Southern Africa and a bibliography of available information on WID in southern Africa.
Information collected will also be used to write regional or country-specific articles on WID which will be disseminated through SARDC’s twice monthly mailing and through other media. The compilation of the Country Profiles on each of the SADC countries and South Africa as well as the Report will be done in close collaboration with national research institutions and the Royal Netherlands Embassy, Lusaka, Zambia. The project is funded by the Netherlands Government Directorate of International Cooperation (DGIS).
In view of this, networking with regional and country NGOs, government and other agencies dealing with women’s issues governments and other agencies dealing with women’s issues throughout the region will form an integral component of the project.
This network will continue to grow and to be served by the project after the initial three-year period through the continued monitoring of changes through documentation of material, and writing papers and articles on gender and development. (14 March 1993)
