Regional: Drivers of change, line ministries in Swaziland and Zambia cost implementation of the SADC Gender Protocol

Swaziland and Zambia are the latest SADC countries to join the process of costing implementation of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development. By the end of the process, both countries will have costed gender action plans aligned to the SADC Gender Protocol’s 28 targets. Stakeholders anticipate that this will inform and help influence resource allocations by the national treasuries in the next budgeting cycles.

In fact, as a result of the initiative, the Ministry of Finance sent out a budget call circular in September 2012 instructing line ministries to ensure that gender is mainstreamed and is reflected across all programme and project budgets submitted and not confine this to specific events.

Both countries have just completed capacity-building workshops, held in September in Swaziland and November in Zambia, which brought together line ministries and civil society to develop the costed gender action plans. The Gender Unit in the Deputy Prime Minister’s Officer in the former and the Ministry of Gender and Child Development in the later are leading the process.

This is in line with Article 33 on Financial Provisions, which commits States Parties to ensure gender sensitive budgets and planning, including the designation of necessary resources towards initiatives aimed at empowering women and girls. The same Article encourages State Parties to mobilise and allocate the necessary human, technical and financial resources for successful implementation of the Protocol.

It is against this background that in early 2011 Gender and Women’s Affairs Ministers from the SADC region agreed on a roadmap for systematic implementation of the Protocol which led to the SADC Gender and Development Conference convened by the SADC Gender Unit in October 2011. At this meeting several countries committed to aligning their national gender policies and gender action plans to the SADC Gender Protocol provisions.

Senior officials in Zambia and Swaziland underscored the importance of the capacity building on gender mainstreaming; gender budgeting and costing policy that accompanies this process.

In her keynote address Zambia, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Gender and Child Development, Edwidge Mutale said, “The basic pre-requisite before any kind of gender budgeting exercise can be undertaken is to have a clear understanding and appreciation of what gender, gender equality and the empowerment of women is all about. Regular orientation on gender and gender issues needs to be undertaken.”

She went on to say, “Orientation and capacity building is another critical process in gender budgeting. I am alive to the fact that the will and desire to have gender responsive budgets is there but it is the how aspect which is inadequate in most planners and policy makers.It is therefore essential to build capacity and skills in government functionaries and stakeholders on the concept and tools of gender budgeting. This is the second meeting on this critical subject of gender responsive”.

In his keynote address Swaziland Permanent Secretary in the Deputy Prime Minister’s office said mainstreaming gender is key to promotion of gender equality and equity. He added that the Gender and Family Issues Unit has a key mandate of facilitating mainstreaming of gender in all sectorial development policies, legislation, programmes and projects.

“Given the comparative advantage that the gender responsive budget approach has, the Gender and Family Issues Unit commissioned a study on the Gender Impact of the Infrastructure Programme of Swaziland to ensure that the needs and interests of individuals from different social groups are addressed in expenditures and revenue policies”, he added.

Inception workshops on costing of National Action Plans preceded the capacity building workshops during the month of August in both Zambia and Swaziland.

At the end of the capacity building workshops participants were awarded with Drivers of Change certificates so that they use the skills gained to change the way budgets are done in their ministries and ensure that gender is adequately mainstreamed.

The SADC Gender Unit, development partners with technical assistance from Gender Links and local resource persons are working the national gender machineries to facilitate this process. Namibia has completed the costing exercise while Seychelles is nearing completion.

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