Gender Policies In Southern Africa And Beyond

Gender as a term, refers to the state of being male or female in relation to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. Societies have gender stereotypes which work against their female members. Women, as the disadvantaged group, have over the past decade led a major movement for their emancipation through national, regional and international groupings such as the Beijing Platform for Action developed in 1995. Some governments have responded positively by reviewing their policies to be gender sensitive, while others have only paid lip service to the subject. Some governments have enacted gender sensitive laws, but fall short in the implementation.

The new Oxford Dictionary defines iepolicyly as a course or principle of action adopted or proposed by a government, party, business, or individual thus a set of ideas or plans that is used as a basis for making decisionsl,. In this respect, gender policy documents have been articulated to cover a wide range of issues in a multifaceted approach. All documents that refer to policy issues on specific subjects with a gender aspect have been included in this bibliography. The thrust of most gender policies is to put in place intervention programmes and measures designed to enhance the status and role of women in decision - making and leadership.

The general trend of the bibliography is that there seems to be more policies on education, health, agriculture and economic issues than other areas. The plausible reason for this is that women have been traditionally confined to the education and health career opportunities, and more input and reforms are happening in those sectors. Agricultural and economic policies are coming up, due to the land issue problem emerging in the region, women are lobbying and advocating for land allocation. Economic policies are common, but hardly empower women to the level that they can be financially independent. The Structural Adjustment Programmes adopted by most Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries have actually overburdened women, by relying on them to replace the public sector in most countries. Employment, environment, disability, child welfare, politics and power issues are neglected in terms of well-defined and strategic gender polices. Most of our countries do not have national gender policies which aim to redress the national inequalities between men and women. The lack of these national gender policies overshadows the availability of other sectoral policies: economic, education and health could be in place but might not necessarily be gender sensitive, because there is no national gender mainstreaming guideline.

The challenge now is how to move from recognition of gender as a central issue in policy and planning, to action.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is an organisation of 14 states of Southern Africa. Through regional cooperation, SADC seeks to promote collective self-reliance and the forging of closer links among its member states to create genuine and equitable regional cooperation. The member states are Angola; Botswana; DRC; Lesotho; Malaw; Mauritius; Mozambique; Namibia; Seychelles; South Africa; Swaziland; Tanzania; Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Gender policies listed in this bibliography are a vital link between governments and NGOs which operate on the practical level, providing an alternative view to improve policies or implementing national policies generated at government level. Women in southern Africa are now more involved in policy analysis and monitoring, to improve the status of women and push the gender agenda forward. Our niche at SARDC is to influence policy formulation through the provision of information of what has been done, the gaps, what is happening on the ground despite having certain policies in place and what are the critical issues to be tackled urgently.

SARDC-WIDSAA's mission is to be a catalyst and information service to the region's governments, parliaments, NGO's and agencies, the media and the public in the formulation of policy affecting women in southern Africa. In the context of the dictionary meaning of policy, it becomes imperative that SARDC-WIDSAA take stock of what is available in the region and identify policy gaps in the different sectors, affecting women. WIDSAA has always advocated well-defined and strategic policies to improve the status and empowerment of women in the region, thus our intervention in women's empowerment as an institution has always been at policy level.

This bibliography has been extracted from the gender database of WIDSAA. The bibliography is therefore selected reference rather than a complete representation of gender policies and related literature.

	GENDER POLICIES IN SOUTHERN AFRICA AND BEYOND A selected bibliography 2000
Compiled by Thembie Phute and Sabelo Mapasure, SARDC Edited by Bookie Kethusegile and Hugh McCullum, SARDC SARDC - Southern African Research and Documentation Centre Box 5690, Harare, Zimbabwe Tel: 263-4-738695/6 Fax: 263-4-738693 Email: sardc@sardc.net, widsaa@sardc.net http://www.sardc.net @ SARDC 2000 ISBN: 1-77910-040-0 This bibliography may be reproduced, used and shared, with full acknowledgement of the publisher. Citation: SARDC, Gender Policies in Southern Africa and Beyond: a selected bibliography, Harare: SARDC, 2000 Available in book form in English. Also searchable from the gender bibliographic database on: http://databases.sardc.net Design and Layout: Hugh McCullum and Juliet Mucheki Origination: Crystal Graphics Printing : Cannon Press	Contents \| Introduction \| Layout of Bibliography \| IWomen in Southern Africa \| About SARDC, WIDSAA
	The Zimbabwe International Book Fair, (ZIBF) an independent organization based in Harare holds once a year an international book fair at the Harare Gardens. The theme of the book fair in 1999 was "Women". Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) paricipated in ZIBF'99 with focus on women and gender, and this theme led to the onceptualization of this project with the following major outputs: SARDC Bibliography Women in Development Southern Africa Awareness (WIDSAA) Website Publications Catalogue Gender Policies Directory/Bibliography The outputs are aimed at disseminating information about gender in southern Africa as well as to showcase the array of bibliographic information on gender and related subjects that have been generated by SARDC since 1987. The purpose of this bibliography is three-fold: highlight the availability of gender literature to policy-makers; raise awareness on policy issues that relate to gender and; highlight the absence of such policies to indicate to the policy-makers critical issues that need policy formulation. Emphasis is placed on southern Africa, however literature focusing on Africa in general and international coverage has been included for reference purposes. Gender as a term, refers to the state of being male or female in relation to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. Societies have gender stereotypes which work against their female members. Women, as the disadvantaged group, have over the past decade led a major movement for their emancipation through national, regional and international groupings such as the Beijing Platform for Action developed in 1995. Some governments have responded positively by reviewing their policies to be gender sensitive, while others have only paid lip service to the subject. Some governments have enacted gender sensitive laws, but fall short in the implementation. The new Oxford Dictionary defines iepolicyly as a course or principle of action adopted or proposed by a government, party, business, or individual thus a set of ideas or plans that is used as a basis for making decisionsl,. In this respect, gender policy documents have been articulated to cover a wide range of issues in a multifaceted approach. All documents that refer to policy issues on specific subjects with a gender aspect have been included in this bibliography. The thrust of most gender policies is to put in place intervention programmes and measures designed to enhance the status and role of women in decision - making and leadership. The general trend of the bibliography is that there seems to be more policies on education, health, agriculture and economic issues than other areas. The plausible reason for this is that women have been traditionally confined to the education and health career opportunities, and more input and reforms are happening in those sectors. Agricultural and economic policies are coming up, due to the land issue problem emerging in the region, women are lobbying and advocating for land allocation. Economic policies are common, but hardly empower women to the level that they can be financially independent. The Structural Adjustment Programmes adopted by most Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries have actually overburdened women, by relying on them to replace the public sector in most countries. Employment, environment, disability, child welfare, politics and power issues are neglected in terms of well-defined and strategic gender polices. Most of our countries do not have national gender policies which aim to redress the national inequalities between men and women. The lack of these national gender policies overshadows the availability of other sectoral policies: economic, education and health could be in place but might not necessarily be gender sensitive, because there is no national gender mainstreaming guideline. The challenge now is how to move from recognition of gender as a central issue in policy and planning, to action. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is an organisation of 14 states of Southern Africa. Through regional cooperation, SADC seeks to promote collective self-reliance and the forging of closer links among its member states to create genuine and equitable regional cooperation. The member states are Angola; Botswana; DRC; Lesotho; Malaw; Mauritius; Mozambique; Namibia; Seychelles; South Africa; Swaziland; Tanzania; Zambia and Zimbabwe. Gender policies listed in this bibliography are a vital link between governments and NGOs which operate on the practical level, providing an alternative view to improve policies or implementing national policies generated at government level. Women in southern Africa are now more involved in policy analysis and monitoring, to improve the status of women and push the gender agenda forward. Our niche at SARDC is to influence policy formulation through the provision of information of what has been done, the gaps, what is happening on the ground despite having certain policies in place and what are the critical issues to be tackled urgently. SARDC-WIDSAA's mission is to be a catalyst and information service to the region's governments, parliaments, NGO's and agencies, the media and the public in the formulation of policy affecting women in southern Africa. In the context of the dictionary meaning of policy, it becomes imperative that SARDC-WIDSAA take stock of what is available in the region and identify policy gaps in the different sectors, affecting women. WIDSAA has always advocated well-defined and strategic policies to improve the status and empowerment of women in the region, thus our intervention in women's empowerment as an institution has always been at policy level. This bibliography has been extracted from the gender database of WIDSAA. The bibliography is therefore selected reference rather than a complete representation of gender policies and related literature.