The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has been challenged to strengthen institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women by providing adequate financial and human resources.

The challenge was made by delegates at the southern African Sub-Regional Meeting for the decade review of the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) held in Lusaka, Zambia, from 26 to 28 April 2004. A meeting of Ministers of Gender or Women’s Affairs on 29 April endorsed the outcomes from the decade review.

After reviewing the 12 critical areas of concern outlined in the BPFA as obstacles to the advancement of women and gender equality, the meeting agreed that gender machineries in the SADC region are weak financially, technically and politically.

They cited inadequate capacity to effect policy implementation, lack of accountability, and monitoring and evaluation as challenges towards a strengthened institutional mechanism for gender equality.

In its resolutions, the meeting noted that while the SADC region has scored progresses in implementing the BPFA, important issues to gender equality and the empowerment of women remain unchanged.

The southern Africa Office of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in collaboration with SADC organized the meeting as part of a worldwide evaluation ahead of 2005, the year marking the 10th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, which was held in Beijing, China, in 1995.

Participants included representatives of national gender machineries, and experts in the Ministries of Finance, Planning, Industry, Commerce and Trade, Foreign Affairs, Health, Agriculture from Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Other participants included representatives from intergovernmental organizations in the southern African region and gender and women’s empowerment NGOs.

The meeting resolved that the established institutional mechanisms in the form of ministries, directorates, divisions, sections or units to co-ordinate the implementation of gender issues must be given clearer goals and strategic interventions that are results-based.

It was highlighted that in some countries gender machineries are given broad mandates that required them to be “jacks of all trade” while they lacked the requisite capacity.

The institutional gender machineries at both the national and SADC regional levels are generally understaffed, inadequately funded and most of them are not strategically positioned within the government structures. This made it difficult for coordination, monitoring and evaluating progress in gender mainstreaming in other line ministries.

The lack of gender specific job descriptions, and the limited knowledge on gender issues coupled with low working morale defeated the good intention behind the established gender focal points in the sectoral ministries in most SADC countries.

Gender focal points personnel are usually overburdened by other responsibilities, and in some cases lacked gender-mainstreaming skills, thereby rendering them unable to influence policy changes in their respective sectors. These problems are compounded by the high turnover of gender specialists.

The meeting noted that only a few experts in the national gender machineries have the requisite gender competencies and awareness on gender equality instruments to implement policies and assist in mainstreaming of gender.

In terms of the sub-regional mechanisms, the meeting noted that the SADC gender unit is currently understaffed and financially under-budgeted.

Acknowledging the difficulties in ensuring enforcement of the national and regional gender policies that are in place, the meeting called for the enactment of such policies including the SADC Gender and Development Declaration to ensure enforcement and provision of adequate budgetary allocations.

The meeting further recommended for annual reporting on achievements on gender by all national gender machineries. Governments should also establish benchmarks for monitoring implementation of the national, regional and global gender frameworks.

A working session for SADC gender and women’s empowerment NGOs that was convened on 25 April to consolidate input from the NGOs presented a communiqué which among others, recommended that governments “rebuild the institutional mechanisms for advancing gender equality to well-resourced and adequately staffed offices placed at the level of full ministries or in the president’s office by 2006.”

The SADC gender NGOs further recommended that a fixed percentage of national budgetary allocations which must be protected and guaranteed by an act of parliament be provided to the institutional mechanisms and added that progress in this regard should be checked at the SADC annual heads of states meeting.

The Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC), Women in Development Southern Africa Awareness (WIDSAA) convened the working session in collaboration with the Non-Governmental Organisation Coordinating Council (NGOCC), the umbrella body of gender and development-oriented NGOs in Zambia.

The meeting encouraged NGOs to continue extending their expertise to government policies. “There should be strategic partnerships between NGOs and governments to develop and strengthen gender competencies”, the meeting resolved.