Southern Africa: Alliance calls for strong Post-2015 Gender Agenda

Gaborone 22 June: The Southern African Gender Protocol Alliance calls on gender ministers gathering here tomorrow to adopt the strongest possible Post-2015 gender agenda for the region.

“This is not a time for watering down commitment or for compromises,” said Emma Kaliya, chair of the Alliance and of the NGO Gender Coordinating Network in Malawi. “We as the SADC region lobbied for strong gender provisions in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Now we have to make them real in our region.”

The Alliance is a coalition of gender networks in the fifteen SADC countries that campaigned for adoption and ratification of this the unique sub-regional instrument that brings together all regional and international commitments to gender equality and enhances these through specific targets and timeframes.

The SADC Protocol on Gender and Development adopted in 2008 was aligned to the 2015 Millennium Development Goals but went further than these by adopting 28 targets to be achieved by that date. Although the annual Barometer produced by the Alliance shows that no country achieved these targets, the SADC region is unique for committing to timelines that have helped to move the gender agenda forward.

At their annual meeting in Harare in 2015, SADC Gender Ministers directed that the Protocol be updated and aligned to the SDGs, that contain over thirty globally agreed gender targets and timeframes to be achieved by 2030. In another first for a SADC Protocol, the ministers  also directed that the Protocol be accompanied by a Monitoring, Evaluation and Results Framework.

Over the last few days the Alliance has had observer status at the senior officials meeting preparing for the annual ministerial meeting that will take place in Botswana on Thursday 23 June. Botswana is the headquarters of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and is presently chair of the regional body (this rotates each year).

In urging ministers to “take the high ground” on gender equality when they meet here tomorrow, the Alliance urges that:

• There be no retreat from the 2030 deadlines of the revised Protocol. While reference to the deadline has been removed from every article of the Protocol, it remains in the preamble. The Alliance understands this to mean that all the commitments made must be achieved by 2030. “Targets and timeframes are what makes our region unique,” said Colleen Lowe Morna, CEO of Gender Links that serves as Secretariat for the Alliance. “This is not the time for open ended agendas.”
• The MER framework, that has been sent back to the drawing board for more work, be adopted before the end of the year as originally directed, and not next year, as proposed by senior officials. During national level government/civil society consultations that preceded the ministers meeting, a great deal of work has already been done on aligning the SADC targets to the SDGs. “The major gap that faces our countries is implementation,” said Ronika Mumbire, Deputy Chair of the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe, the focal network of the Alliance in Zimbabwe. “We cannot keep postponing monitoring and evaluation.”
• The role of civil society be acknowledged and formalised, so that the work being done can be harominised and built upon. “The reason we have come so far on gender in this region is because of the dynamic relationship between gender ministries and the Women’s Rights Organisations,” noted Botswana NGO Council Chair Monica Kethusegile. “These partnerships need to be concretised if we are to deliver results in the next fifteen years.”
• Botswana and Mauritius, the two countries that have still not signed the Protocol, do so at or following the ministers meeting. “One of the saddest realities of working with this instrument is that our government is not a signatory,” said Chigedze Chinyepe from BOCONGO, the alliance focal network in Botswana. “We believe that the negotiations that have taken place over the last year on the Post-2015 Protocol have provided ample opportunity for any obstacles to signing to be removed. One of the best 50^th birthday presents that the women of Botswana could wish for is that our government signs the Protocol!”

For more information contact:

Keabonye Ntsabane, 267 7179644

Emma Kaliya, Alliance Chair on 265 88 882 5376

Colleen Lowe Morna, GL CEO on 27 82 651 6995; ceo@genderlinks.org.za

Sifisosami Dube, Alliance and Partnerships Manager on 27 78 274 5428; alliance@genderlinks.org.za