Zambia and Zimbabwe - SADC Countries' National Areas of Concern - Introduction - SADC Gender Monitor - WIDSAA

Zambia

Immediately after Beijing, the Non -Governmental Organisations' Coordinating Committee (NGOCC) held report-back conferences for the donors, the media, its members and the public at large. NGOCC summarised and simplified the PFA and translated it into Zambia's seven major local languages for every woman to understand what the conference was all about and later translate the outcome into action.

A visioning workshop was held in October 1995 to reflect on the women's achievements and problems since the first world conference on women of 1975 to identify the gaps and the way forward after Beijing. The vision for the Zambian women was still the same: to empower all women by the year 2005.

After the visioning workshop, NGOCC organised a Thematic Plan of Action workshop, where the NGOs drew their plans of action for implementing the PFA.

This workshop prepared for the national workshop that came up with a national Strategic Plan for the Advancement of Women (SPAW) in Zambia.

The NGOs, through their umbrella body NGO co-ordinating committee NGOCC, participated in the drafting of the SPAW. This document is awaiting adoption by government and spells out the five priority areas for Zambia for five years in implementing the outcome of Beijing Conference. These are:

Poverty
Education
Health
Decision-making
Girl-child.

Zimbabwe

In order to effectively implement the Beijing recommendations, the Ministry of National Affairs, Employment Creation and Co-operatives has identified three priority areas of concern:

Economic empowerment of women
Education and training
Women's political participation.

Gender focal points have been established and formalised in all government ministries. These are senior government officials at deputy and under secretary levels who are charged with the responsibility of ensuring that a gender perspective is mainstreamed into all ministries' programmes, policies and projects.

They have since produced action plans to facilitate the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and mainstreaming gender into their respective ministry programmes and policies.