Media advisory: Deputy President officiates at Gender and Local Government Ceremony

The award ceremony will also witness the launch of a book of profiles of the representatives of different political parties who participated in the course, reflecting on their experiences as councilors of the City of Johannesburg from a gender perspective.  The book, part of Gender Links’ “I Stories” series, is an important contribution to the limited literature on gender and local governance in South Africa and the region.   

 

The ceremony takes place just months before local government elections in which the African National Congress (ANC) has pledged to ensure that at least half of its new councilors are women: the first time that the 30 percent target of previous elections has been challenged.        

 

The awarding of certificates will mark the completion of a training course that involved a unique partnership between an NGO (Gender Links), academic institution (the University of Witwatersrand) and the nation’s largest municipality (the City of Johannesburg). 

 

In December 2003 the City of Johannesburg hosted the launch of GL’s study, “Ringing up the Changes: Gender in Southern African Politics.” The study highlights both the centrality of gender issues to local governance, and the extent to which existing gender initiatives have tended to focus on national and regional levels rather than on this crucial sphere of governance.

 

The course is the first of its kind in South Africa and the region involving gender and local government. It is one of the few training courses for decision-makers that has been designed to suit their schedules and adapted to focus on their every day work. It also touched on a wide cross section of skills including gender analysis, communication (including IT) and transformative leadership training.

 

The inclusion of men (some 25 percent of the participants) made for robust debate and has led to a cadre of male champions of gender equality in the City.  In addition to the individual skills gained, the programme led to a draft Gender Policy with far-reaching recommendations, such as ensuring that gender considerations are firmly embedded in tendering processes and in major projects like the World Cup 2010.  

 

The Johannesburg pilot project is currently being replicated in eThekwini and Msunduzi in KZN.  Senior officials from these municipalities are expected to attend. The projects have been made possible through funding from the Mott Foundation.