Peace begins@home: Gender and climate justice by 2015!

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Welcome to the 21st edition of the Roadmap to Equality!Tracking progress towards the implementation and ratification of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development.

A number of Southern African organisations will this year focus the Sixteen Days of Activism against Gender Violence campaign on the theme: From peace in the home to peace in the world; end gender violence by 2015! This is in line with the key provisions of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development that includes an overarching target of reducing by half current levels of gender based violence by 2015.

With South Africa hosting the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) during year’s sixteen days period activists will pay some attention to gender and climate justice issues under the slogan: Peace begins@ home: climate and gender justice. The conference is providing much needed impetus to the campaign to the addendum to the Protocolon Gender and Climate Justice.

The Sixteen Days Campaign is the period between 25 November and 10 December when all stakeholders from the international to local community levels use the period to raise awareness against gender violence.

This takes place on the backdrop of the just ended SADC Consultative Conference on Gender and Development convened by SADC Secretariat’s Gender Unit in October that identified one of the priority actions as reducing gender based violence. Senior officials responsible for gender and women’s affairs, civil society organisations, gender experts and development partners use the conference to come up with a regional plan of action to operationalise the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development.

The conference commended Seychelles now ties with South Africa as the leading country in SADC with regard to women’s representation in parliament after the October elections. Women won 15 out of 33 seats (43%). However, the prognosis is not good in the upcoming November elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Women only constitute 12% of the candidates that will stand. There is therefore no chance that DRC will achieve the SADC Gender Protocol target of 50% women in parliament by 2015 in the country’s last election before that date.

The Southern Africa Gender Protocol Alliance is making great strides in strengthening institutional mechanisms as shown by the just ended cluster meetings that saw an inception meeting of the HIV, AIDS and Sexual Reproductive Health Cluster and a Madagascar national working group on women, peace and security being constituted.

Till next time!