Greetings from the Alliance

Welcome to the 15th edition of Roadmap to Equality, keeping you posted on regional news and developments in the count down to the 2015 deadline to reach the targets of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development. A key highlight this period is that the Alliance has officially been invited by the SADC CNGO to represent the gender sector within the broader umbrella network of SADC NGOs. This is an important landmark for the alliance, that demonstrates the power of united action.

Ratification of the SADC Gender Protocol remains high on our agenda. Eight Member States have ratified, but only five have deposited Ratification Instruments with the SADC Secretariat. One more country is needed to ratify before the Protocol can come into force: this will likely be either South Africa or Zambia as both are moving forward with ratification. We now need to join forces and lobby for one or both of these countries to ratify. Time is running out and 2015 is around the corner.

This past month UN Women, the SADC Gender Unit, Gender Links and the Zimbabwe Women Resource Centre Network (ZWRCN) convened a meeting with gender responsive budgeting and costing experts to deliberate on costing implementation of the Gender Protocol. We have learned that this costing is a long and complex process. However, the think tank meeting set the process in motion and we will soon be calling on various stakeholders at country level to support this process.

This month we also share the exciting news that the Alliance has added three new clusters: Regional Service Overseas – Regional AIDS Initiative of Southern Africa (VSO RAISA) joins the Alliance to lead the Care Work cluster; Botswana Council of NGOs (BOCONGO) will lead the Education and Training cluster and the NGO Gender Coordinating Network in Malawi has brought the Men’s sector (Men for Gender Equality Now – MEGEN) on board.

We have several Alliance activities and caucus meetings lined up for March, as well as regional, international, cluster news and a much more to look forward to in this edition of Roadmap to Equality. Thank you for reading and thanks to those who contributed.

In order to remain fresh and relevant to the issues in your country and our region WE NEED YOUR INPUT! To make contributions and comments or to get information, please write to alliance@genderlinks.org.za or allianceofficer@genderlinks.org.za.

We request that all contributions be submitted by the 20th of each month in order for us to include your input. Please note that that the e-newsletter goes out on the 1st of every month.