by Grace Kwinjeh and Virginia Muwanigwa
One year after the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, the most important question is what actions have come out of the world’s biggest meeting on women.
Women in the southern African region are continuing the momentum created by Beijing, as they urge governments to implement national gender policies and bring the objectives of Beijing to reality.
The Beijing Platform for Action carries strategies which can be used to effect objectives of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against women (CEDAW). It also provides a broader outlook of aspirations already contained in CEDAW.
The post-Beijing Southern African Sub regional Focal Field-Level Institution (RFFI) conference held in Botswana, in November last year signified a positive step toward following up on the progress made in Beijing. This workshop was aimed at lobbying and mobilising for the development of women at government level and coming up with a sub-regional coalition on women’s issues.
A follow-up meeting was held in the same country in May this year.
At both meetings, SADC was represented by its Special Advisor, Isaah Nebwe and it was agreed that there should be a more gendered approach at national and regional levels.
Nebwe noted that, “it is the responsibility of the SADC Secretariat to ensure that gender issues are incorporated in its member states”.
SADC, which has been accused of dragging its feet on mainstreaming gender issues in its programmes, is thus set to become more gender sensitive in the post-Beijing era.
It has been identified by women’s groups around the region as a viable structure through which ratification of gender policies can more effectively be lobbied.
At a SADC conference on Social Development in Mbabane, Swaziland in March, one of the resource papers was on Engendering Social Development in the SADC region: Potential areas for Regional Cooperation.
The paper stressed that gender needs to be a strong component of all SADC programmes. In a related group discussion, recommendations were taken from those of the November post-Beijing Sub-regional Workshop held in Botswana.
An institutional framework to deal with gender issues was explored and the options are threefold: a Gender Commission which will be more autonomous; a sector, where a country would be chosen to facilitate this sector and would be responsible for mainstreaming gender issues and a Gender Desk in the SADC Secretariat tasked with ensuring that all other sectors are gender sensitive.
The most important outcome of Beijing for southern Africa has been the adoption of gender policies chosen from the 12 critical areas of concern in most of the southern African countries. These are aimed at advancing the status of women at all levels in society. They also make special emphasis on the objectives for the platform for action to help in the monitoring of government compliance on the set goals.
The need for policies comes as a result of countries in the region not abiding by international conventions such as the CEDAW, where national laws are not in conformity with the conventions. This is despite the fact that it is at government level that policies affecting women can be properly monitored.
Since policies are political instruments which are statements of intent as well as commitment, it is important for women’s organisations to make sure that governments do not just pay lip service to these but actions follow.
It is important for these policies also to be implemented in the highest offices where decisions pertaining to legislation are made or efforts made after Beijing will just go down the drain.
In December 1995, Zambia also held a post Beijing sub-regional workshop organised by the National Women’s Lobby Group, which provided a forum for southern African women to discuss action plans for the implementation of the platform of action.
As a result of the workshop, the lobby group has launched a national election campaign fund to help sponsor women candidates regardless of their political affiliation during the general and presidential elections expected to be held in October.
A study carried out by the Zambian Association for Research and Development (ZARD) on the status of women in Zambia shows that it was only after Beijing that the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy was forced to respond seriously to the issue of a national gender policy. “No such machinery has been established but government has been made to respond to the demands of the 1995 Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women.”
The study adds that Zambian NGOs and the government have started working together to translate the Beijing and platform for action into a reality. This has resulted in the Strategic Plan for the Advancement of Women in Zambia (SPAW), which prioritises key actions to strengthen women’s participation in Zambia’s development over the next five years.
The objectives of SPAW include the guiding of government policy-makers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in implementing the Beijing Zambia Platform for Action and is also supposed to serve as short term implementation plan for the Government’s National Gender Policy.
SPAW, it is hoped, will respond to the plight of Zambian women as the Permanent Secretary, Gender In development Division, Grace Mupalesi says, ”we strategic plan as a key planning and monitoring tool and as a reflection of the voice of Zambia women everywhere
In Botswana, the policy on Women in Development was passed in parliament in early August and Mmegi, a weekly newspaper, reports that it received overwhelming support. This policy in Botswana came as a result of six areas of concern being identified and prioritised. These are poverty, power sharing, decision-making, education and training, health, violence and the girl child. On the presentation of the policy, the Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Bahiti Temane, told parliament that “women are an important resource in economic terms and therefore, their full participation as partners in socio-economic development is critical and should be given due recognition and support.” Batswana women constitute at least 50 percent of the population and 47 percent of the households are female-headed.
A fully fledged department of women’s affairs has also been created which will be the secretariat of the national council on women. The council will be responsible for the coordination of policy review, assisting government to fulfil its responsibilities in women’s issues and to guide and support NGOs to collaborate with government in the implementation of the policy.
Similarly, Zimbabwean NGOs in collaboration with the Ministry of National’ Affairs, Employment Creation and Cooperatives which holds the women’s desk are in the process of formulating a gender policy which is expected to be introduced next month.
The Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF) carried out a study on the extent of violence against women in society, in preparation for Dakar and Beijing conferences. The study revealed that no country in the region has any specific legislation on domestic violence. It is against this background that after Beijing Zimbabwean women carried out a national campaign against gender violence.
This campaign enabled the women to get a petition against domestic violence signed which was later passed to the minister responsible for women’s’ affairs who later passed it on to the Ministry of Justice and Parliamentary affairs.
Even though the ministry responsible is yet to do something, the campaign made an impact in that government was made to realise some kind of legislation is needed to respond positively to the problem.
The Senior Secretary in the Ministry of National Affairs says, “Beijing was a success as an event in that women agreed to actions which they are implementing now.”
Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa in a speech made at the presentation ceremony of the Beijing Declaration, said his government was,” committed to the creation of socio-political, legal and regulatory environment which will enable women to be full participants in decision-making over the production processes as well as key actors and equal beneficiaries of fruits of their labour. ”
In Beijing the situation of the girl-child was put on the international agenda for the first time, as the twelfth critical area of concern.
With this in mind, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is currently co-ordinating programmes on the girl-child in most southern African countries. These are aimed at eliminating gender stereotyping in school curricula, replacing them with learning materials and teaching aids which strengthen the self-image of girls, with adequate information on adolescence, teenage pregnancy and responsible parenthood.
In Mozambique, preparations are underway to commemorate the first anniversary of Beijing. Among some of the activities will be a revisit of the platform for action to establish the way forward. Similar commemorations are expected to take place in the other countries.
As different stakeholders take stock of progress after Beijing, women’s groups are ‘wary of being blinded by further promises and are instead demanding comprehensive plans of action. (SARDC)
