This collaboration and constant lobbying of SADC by the Regional Advisory Committee (RAC) was initiated prior to the Beijing Conference and has continued thereafter.

In addition, committees and progressive networks with stakeholders such as SARDC,WILDAF, WILSA and UNIFEM, have either been formalised or strengthened. In southern Africa, the Gender and Development Declaration is a product of such a positive environment.

It all began with the transformation of the pre-Beijing task force into a Regional Advisory Committee at the second regional post-Beijing Workshop in May 1996 in Gaborone, Botswana.

Since its inception, the RAC collaborated with SADC and gender experts to ensure that gender was incorporated into the SADC Programme of Action and Community Building Initiative and accorded serious attention.

The Gaborone meeting also developed a "mini plan of action" as an interim measure to be implemented in the period leading up to the SADC Council of Ministers meeting in August 1996.

After realising that the 1996 SADC Council was too ambitious a target, it was moved to the Council of Ministers meeting in Windhoek in February 1997.

Through constant lobbying and advocacy backed with critical information on the situation of women in the region, the SADC Council of Ministers allocated two hours on 5 February 1997, to a Ministerial workshop on gender.

The meeting was facilitated by regional gender experts in various fields and focused on why gender is a key development issue, and why it is important to integrate and mainstream it in the SADC Programme of Action and Community Building.

• Consider a factual analysis of the real situation of women in the different countries of the region in different sectors;
• Assess the SADC Programme of Action and Community-Building Initiative from a gender perspective, identify gaps and make recommendations for a policy framework to ensure that gender is mainstreamed into all SADC activities;
• Identify areas in which SADC countries would benefit from closer co-operation;
• Recommend institutional mechanisms for addressing gender issues in the region.

• place gender firmly on the agenda of its Programme of Action and Community Building Initiative through a declaration to that effect by Heads of State and Government at their next Summit in September 1997;
• establish a policy framework for mainstreaming gender in all its activities, and strengthen the efforts by member states to achieve gender equality;
• establish an institutional framework for advancing gender equality consistent with that established for other areas of co-operation, but which ensures that gender is routinely taken into account in all sectors as follows;
• establish a Standing Committee of Ministers responsible for Gender Affairs in the region;
• adopt the existing Advisory Committee whose task would be to advise the Standing Committee of Ministers, and other Sectoral Committees of Ministers on gender issues;
• establish Gender Focal Points whose task would be to ensure that gender is taken into account in all sectoral initiatives, and is placed on the agenda of all ministerial meetings;
• establish a Gender Unit in the SADC Secretariat consisting of at least two officers at a senior level.

A 160-page-book Into the Future: Gender and SADC which describes this progress has been published. The publication, which was launched by SADC chairperson President Nelson Mandela at the 1997 Summit of SADC Heads of State and Government in Malawi, documents the process and events leading to the historical Gender and Development Declaration.

• Introduction to the SADC Gender Monitor
• Global, Regional and National Commitments
• SADC Countries' National Priority Areas of Concern