Into the future: gender and SADC

Submission to the Economic Commission for Africa compendium of best practices

A case study of integrating gender into a sub-regional organisation

By Valencia Mogegeh; Athaliah Molokomme and Colleen Lowe Morna

For the SADC Gender Advisory Committee

Signing ceremonies at the heads of state summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are usually solemn affairs. But nothing could stop the women of Southern Africa from breaking into song and dance as their heads of state signed the "SADC Declaration on Gender and Development" in Blantyre, Malawi, on 8 September, 1997. A few years ago, it would have been unthinkable that the all male heads of state of the Southern African region would even contemplate an agenda item on gender. Yet there they were, at this most important event in the regional calendar, declaring that: "the integration and mainstreaming of gender issues in the SADC Programme of Action and Community Building initiative in key to the sustainable development of the SADC region".

Few declarations have been the product of more lobbying, planning, and sheer dogged determination. The process leading up to this declaration, and the efforts now under way to integrate gender into all SADC policies and programmes, illustrate how women in the Southern African region have sought to ensure that the commitments made at the Fourth World Conference on Women are sustained by institutionalising gender in their sub-regional organisation. The story of SADC and gender is an example of the axiom: think globally, act locally.

The context: Women in the SADC Region

All Southern African countries, except Swaziland have signed, ratified or acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). In those countries with written constitutions, gender discrimination is outlawed, with South Africa, Namibia and Malawi having the most advanced provisions.

But in some cases, the provisions that guarantee gender equality allow for exceptions especially in the case of customary law, personal law or family law. In reality, the dual legal systems comprising state law and customary law contain provisions that discriminate against women, either directly or in effect.

Women’s access to, and control of arable land and livestock remains restricted; their access to credit is limited both by their limited access to land and livestock and by legal provisions and attitudes of financial institutions in all Southern African countries. Not surprisingly, in most Southern African countries, women constitute the majority of the unemployed; and earn less than one third the incomes of men.

Women constitute less than ten percent of parliamentarians in all SADC countries except for South Africa and Mozambique where women constitute one quarter of legislators.

Violence against women is high in all SADC countries, and the number of reported cases is increasing. Laws regarding rape, domestic violence and sexual harassment, are treated under the general criminal law that is not gender sensitive. Law enforcement officials are also not sensitive to the fact that violence against women is a not just a crime against the state, but a violation of women’s human rights and bodily integrity.

Background to the post Beijing initiatives

Women in SADC seized the opportunity of the preparations for the Beijing conference to consolidate already existing networks on gender and women’s issues in the region. With financial support from the Netherlands Government, a regional Advisory Committee consisting of representatives from NGOs and National Women’s Machineries from each member state was set up. This Advisory Committee met in Windhoek, Namibia in 1994 and in Lusaka in 1995 to agree on a sub-regional position on the draft Platform for Action.

A post-Beijing conference in Gaborone in 1995 established a task force to draft a regional Plan of Action with Botswana as the focal point and secretariat for a period of three years. Botswana is assisted in this task by Namibia and Zimbabwe. These three countries constitute the Standing Management Committee.The initial draft sub-regional Plan of Action was further refined by the Advisory Committee in May 1996.

Summary of the draft SADC Regional Plan of Action

The draft Sub-Regional Plan of Action identified the following four critical areas of concern and a number of actions, including:

  • Strengthening Institutional Mechanisms: encouraging SADC countries to formulate progressive gender policies, identifying a model for the institutionalisation of gender into SADC, conducting gender training and sensitisation workshops for the SADC Council of Ministers, ministers responsible for gender and women’s affairs and other SADC officials.

  • Power Sharing and Decision Making: conducting training for women and their organisations in lobbying skills; making recruitment procedures and language for SADC posts more transparent and gender sensitive; encouraging women to apply for posts, creating a pool of skilled women, lobbying for increased representation of women at all levels, and encouraging member states to legislate for affirmative action.

  • Economic Policies and Access to Structures and Resources: reviewing and analysing SADC sectoral policies to assess their impact on women’s lives; gender sensitisation of SADC sector planning officers; reviewing inter-country trade policies and tariff regulations, with a view to facilitating better access to markets by women.

  • Promoting Women’s Human Rights: ensuring that the tribunal provided for under Article 16 of the SADC treaty addresses violations of women’s rights; incorporating the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) into SADC instruments and protocols; encouraging member countries to incorporate CEDAW into their national constitutions and legislation; establishing a SADC human rights commission, or supporting the establishment of an NGO-based human rights monitor.

The May 1996 Advisory Committee meeting decided that the two priorities would be

  • putting into place institutional mechanisms for gender at the sub- regional level, and

  • sensitising the SADC Council of Ministers, (which comprises ministers of finance and economic planning) to gender issues.

Gender Strategy Workshop, January, 1997

At an informal meeting in the wings of the Fifth Commonwealth Conference of Ministers responsible for Women’s Affairs in Trinidad and Tobago in November 1996, ministers from the region requested the Commonwealth Secretariat to support a strategy meeting of the Advisory Committee to plan for the SADC Council of Minister’s meeting that was to be held in February, and in which gender was to feature as an agenda item for the first time.

A Gender Strategy workshop took place in Johannesburg on 30 and 31 January 1997, a week before the Council of Ministers Meeting in Windhoek. Opening the workshop, and setting the tone for this groundbreaking event, Thenjiwe Mtintso, Chair of the Commission on Gender Equality, declared:

"There can be no sustainable development when women, who constitute half of SADC’s population, have no opportunity to develop their potential; when development programmes are completely gender unfriendly; when decisions about changing the lives of people are taken without the participation of half of the very lives that have to be changed. SADC has to realise that the current epoch, proudly paraded in the apparel for democracy, is far from being democratic. There is in the main only electoral democracy and not real direct and participatory democracy. It cannot be participatory democracy when decisions are taken by some on behalf of others."

Among key recommendations made at the workshop were that:

  • Gender be put firmly on the SADC agenda through a declaration of Heads of State.

  • An institutional framework for advancing gender equality be put in place, including a Standing Committee of Ministers responsible for Gender in the SADC region; an Advisory Committee consisting of one government and one NGO official; a Management Committee consisting of three member countries, with one of these serving as focal point; gender focal points be established in all the sector co-ordinating units and regional commissions; a gender unit be established in the SADC Secretariat

  • SADC adopt a Plan of Action on Gender and Development including of an audit of current programmes; training, targets and indicators.

  • Adequate resources be allocated for all the above.

Ministerial Workshop on Gender, February 1997

On 5 February 1997- the eve of the SADC Council of Ministers meeting in Windhoek- the Advisory Committee presented the recommendations of the Gender Strategy Workshop at an unprecedented Ministerial Workshop on Gender. Against all expectations, 86 ministers and officials attended the workshop, variously described as "ground breaking"; "eye opening", and "long overdue".

In her welcoming address, Hon Nentumbo Ndaitwah, Director General of the Department of Women's’Affairs in Namibia noted that SADC governments had committed themselves to the Beijing Platform for Action. "What is at stake," she noted, "is the implementation of what we have committed ourselves to do."

Two delegates to the SADC Gender Strategy Workshop made keynote inputs. They pointed out that SADC documents and programmes reflected a shocking lack of gender awareness. They noted that gender equality is a human right, and it makes economic sense. Summing up the discussion at the ministerial workshop, another delegate pointed out that SADC had made a name for itself among regional organisations because of its dynamism and flexibility. Just as there had been SADC before and after apartheid, the challenge confronting ministers was to make the Windhoek meeting the dividing line between SADC before and after gender.

Rising to the occasion, South African Foreign Minister Alfred Nzo who chaired the workshop with great vigour and enthusiasm, pledged to ensure that the Council of Ministers meeting- which he would be chairing the next day- adopted the recommendations of the Gender Strategy Workshop. The recommendations were indeed adopted almost in their entirety.

Meeting of Standing Committee of Ministers, August 1997

In August 1997, Ministers Responsible for Gender in the SADC region met for the first time in Gaborone to prepare for the Heads of State summit. They agreed on a draft Declaration on Gender and Development to be presented to Heads of State the following month; and approved the manuscript of a book titled "Into the Future: Gender and SADC", prepared by the Advisory Committee. The book is a celebration and description of the process by which gender finally made it onto the SADC agenda. The Ministers also endorsed a proposal tabled by the South African delegation for a regional conference on violence against women.

Heads of State Summit, Blantyre, Malawi, September, 1997

Several ministers from this forum, and members of the Advisory Committee attended the summit in Blantyre at which Heads of State and Government signed the SADC Declaration on Gender and Development, and launched the book, "Into the Future: SADC and Gender".

Speaking at this historic ceremony, South African President Nelson Mandela, the current Chair of SADC, declared:

"Since its inception seventeen years ago, the Southern African Development Community has focused on human resource development, enterprise, capacity building and, more recently, productivity. Yet, in all of this, we have largely glossed over the different starting points of men and women who are partners in the development of our region…. As leaders of SADC, we recognise that freedom cannot truly be achieved unless women attain equality, respect and dignity through their full participation in every aspect of our regional endeavour."

Among commitments made in the SADC Declaration on Gender and Development are:

  • Ensuring the equal representation of women and men in the decision making of member states and SADC structures at all levels, and the achievement of at least a thirty percent target of women in political and decision making structures by the year 2005.

  • Promoting women’s access to, and control over productive resources such as land, livestock, markets, credit, modern technology, formal employment

  • Repealing and reforming all laws, amending constitutions and changing social practices which still subject women to discrimination, and enacting empowering gender sensitive laws

  • Recognising, protecting and promoting the reproductive and sexual rights of women and girl children.

  • Taking urgent measures to prevent and deal with the increasing levels of violence against women and children.

Regional Conference on Violence Against Women 5 to 8 March, 1998

Building on the momentum generated by the Heads of State summit, SADC ministers, legislators, government officials and representatives of non-governmental organisations met in Durban, South Africa, in the three days leading up to international women’s day this year, to discuss common strategies for eradicating violence against women. Participants put forward a draft "Declaration on the Prevention and Eradication of Violence Against Women" to be considered by Heads of State at their 1998 summit in Mauritius.

The Declaration, which "strongly condemns violence against women in all its forms," proposes a range of legislative, social, economic, cultural and political measures for eradicating this scourge. It urges that "consideration be given to the adoption of legally binding SADC instruments on Preventing Violence Against Women and Children" and "ensure that these commitments are translated into tangible actions." Members are to submit biannual reports to the SADC Secretariat on progress towards the elimination of violence against women.

SADC Gender Unit

The SADC Secretariat has advertised posts for, and is in the process of establishing a gender unit. This unit will play a key role in ensuring that gender is mainstreamed in all SADC policies and programmes. It will also monitor the implementation of the commitments on gender, which have been made at national and regional level.

Lessons

Several lessons have been learned in lobbying for the incorporation of gender into the SADC agenda:

  • Being strategic: Gender processes are bound to be marginalised unless they are brought to the centre stage. By targeting the Council of Ministers and SADC Heads of State and Government, Southern African women ensured that their voices were heard at the highest decision making levels of their sub- regional organisation.

  • Securing political commitment at the highest level: Political commitment at the highest level is key to ensuring support for the incorporation of gender sensitive policies and programmes in sub-regional institutions.

  • Partnership between governments and NGOs: The SADC Gender Advisory Committee is a fine example of the creativity and energy that are released when government and NGOs work together in a common endeavour. The committee, currently the only such formal partnership in SADC, could become a prototype for similar partnerships in the sub-regional organisation.

  • Creating institutional mechanisms for advancing gender equality: Southern African women grasped early on in the process that policies and programmes which are not accompanied by implementing and monitoring mechanisms are not likely to go far. They proposed a package of mechanisms based on existing SADC structures, but also taking into account the need to mainstream gender in all SADC sectors.

  • Drawing on international best practice: Considerable reference has been made during the process to the experience of other international organisations, and especially the Commonwealth Secretariat, in arguing the case for institutionalising gender in SADC.

  • Support of the international community: In turn, the process is a fine example of how international organisations can be more effective by supporting sub- regional initiatives. Twelve out of the fourteen SADC member states are members of the Commonwealth. By stepping in with technical and material support for the Gender Strategy Workshop and subsequent processes, the Commonwealth Secretariat was able to further its own Action Plan for Gender and Development. UN agencies, notably UNIFEM, and the Netherlands government have also made important and timely contributions to the process.

  • Patience and determination: Getting gender accepted onto the SADC agenda has, above all, illustrated the importance of persistence and building incrementally on every gain made.

Reflections:

Declarations and institutions are no guarantee that real change will take place in the lives of the women of our region who constitute the majority of the poor; the homeless and the dispossessed. Yet without this political commitment, and without the structures to ensure that this commitment is turned into tangible programmes, such change is never likely to come about. By putting pressure on SADC to take gender seriously, women in the region have scored an important victory. Yet, as they saying in our region goes, no victory is ever final. Aluta continua !

 
 

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