Seychelles: Gender policy aligned to SADC Gender Protocol at advanced stage

The Seychelles Ministry of Social Development Gender Secretariat has undertaken to develop a National Gender Policy for the first time in the country’s history. This will enable all ministries to use the policy as a guide in mainstreaming gender in all its programming and budgeting processes. Seychelles will align the policy to key provisions of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development and other regional and international instruments related to gender.

The National Women’s Machinery held a consultative meeting to review the first draft of the gender policy on 20 November 2011. Based on the comments received the national women’s machinery will review a second draft and comment further on 20 December 2011.

A next step is the development of a gender action plan with timeframes, baseline data and related costs in January 2012. Seychelles follows Namibia in domesticating the SADC Gender Protocol to provide a roadmap to achieve the 28 targets set for 2015. As with Namibia, training of line ministries on gender mainstreaming and costing action plans will complement these processes with support from the SADC Gender Unit.

Following a SADC Gender and Development Conference in October 2011 convened by SADC Gender Unit and attended by senior officials responsible for gender/women affairs, and leading civil society organisations, Member States have committed to aligning their gender policies and action plans to the Gender Protocol and cost these actions. This will provide informed budgets to finance ministries and development partners so that they provide financial, technical and human resources support to national governments.

The consultative meeting ended with the Seychelles launch of the SADC Gender Protocol Barometer officiated by the Principal Secretary, Linda William.