SADC Alliance and Partnerships

By Graça Maria- 1st April 2019- Durante dois dias (26 e 27 de Março), diferentes activistas e organizações da sociedade civil reuniram-se para em conjunto discutir e fazer Encontro da […]

Call for participation in SADC CNGO and Southern Africa Gender Protocol Alliance Meetings 2017 – please respond by Wednesday 26 July [gravityform id=”48″ title=”false” description=”true”]

Call for participation in SADC CNGO and Southern Africa Gender Protocol Alliance Meetings 2017 – please respond by Wednesday 26 July [gravityform id=”47″ title=”false” description=”true”]

November’s Alliance News is integrated into the Sixteen Days of Activism Newsletter, going out daily during the Sixteen Days campaign period. The newsletter is packed with plans, reflections and reviews of the road we have travelled to tackle gender based violence (GBV).

On behalf of my colleagues in the Southern African Gender Protocol Alliance, I feel very privileged and honoured to stand before you today and deliver this speech. The gender sector in our region is unique in the extent to which it has opened the door to civil society participation. Together with our Governments, we campaigned for a SADC Protocol on Gender and Development with 28 targets to be achieved by 2015. With two years to go until this deadline, also the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals, we have changed our slogan from “yes we can” to “yes we must”!

We wish to thank SADC and UNWOMEN for enabling us to make our voice heard at this strategic gathering. We want to assure our governments that we are your firm partners and allies in taking forward the gender agenda in our countries. You have been elected to deliver a better life to all our citizens – especially for women. We are the hands, feet, eyes and ears, hearts and heads, that can help deliver these visionary goals. We are not your competitors but rather an implementing arm of our Governments.

So close, yet so far away….what is at stake?

The signature of a Protocol by a SADC Member State signifies an initial endorsement of that Protocol. However, it’s not over yet: SADC Article 41 then requires that a two thirds majority of member states should then ratify and deposit Instruments of Ratification with the SADC Secretariat. Only then can a Protocol come into force.

I recently read that “obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.” Wow, how loaded, I thought to myself. I could not help but link it to the work we do in our struggle for gender justice and equality by 2015.

We are pleased to share that in November the SADC Gender Protocol Alliance was appointed to the gender cluster of the SADC Council of Non Governmental Organisations (SADC-CNGO) after an engagement process that started in August at the 6th Civil Society Forum convened by SADC-CNGO.

This positive development is a confirmation that the Alliance is doing work which is recognised regionally and it will help strengthen relations with SADC-CNGO.