About the Alliance

Background  |  Key achievements  |  How we work  |  Meeting documents

The Southern Africa Gender Protocol Alliance is a regional “network of networks” that championed the adoption of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development (2008). Since then, the Alliance has produced an annual Barometer to track progress in achieving gender equality in the SADC region against the targets of the Protocol. In 2009, the Alliance launched the Action and Results campaign for the implementation of the Protocol.  In 2014, the Alliance mounted a campaign for the Protocol to be updated in line with the Post 2015 Agenda. With its slogan, Yes we can!  the Alliance has managed to get 9 of the 15 SADC Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries to ratify the Protocol and continues to work hard seeing to it that the remaining 6 countries sign and ratify the Protocol. Comprising country focal networks; theme and interest group clusters, the Alliance produces case studies of the Protocol@work.  Download the publication Roadmap to equality: Lessons learned in the campaign for a SADC Protocol on Gender and Development. 

Key achievements of the Southern Africa Gender Protocol Alliance

• Demanding accountability: Mobilising for the signing and ratification of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development, the only sub-regional instrument of its kind that brings together all existing commitments to gender equality in one instrument with 28 time- bound targets.
• Coalition building and strengthening civil society: Galvanising the women’s movement through national focal networks, theme clusters and interest groups. Representing the gender sector in the SADC Congress of NGOs and mainstreaming gender in the work of this regional lobby network.
• Advocacy and awareness raising through distributing multi-media IEC materials in 23 local languages; village workshops; radio spots; a DVD and interactive engagements in all SADC countries whose impact is measured through a knowledge quiz available on the website.
• Implementation: The Alliance has conducted pioneering research on aligning national gender policies and action plans with the targets of the Protocol and costing implementation at national level. The Alliance is working with the SADC Gender Unit on a road map for implementing the Protocol agreed by gender ministers in 2011.
• Monitoring and evaluation through the monthly Roadmap to Equality newsletter; annual Southern Africa Gender Protocol Barometer that tracks implementation of the 28 targets and several case studies of the Protocol@work. In 2011 the Alliance introduced the Southern Africa Gender and Development Index (SGDI): an empirical measure of how countries are performing as a baseline against which progress towards the 2015 targets can be measured.

 How we work

The SADC Gender Protocol Alliance comprises of 15 countries and 9 regional networks each with a representative on the steering committee that meets annually in the wings of the SADC Heads of State Summit, and through periodic teleconferences. Sector groups hold meetings linked to key events and conferences in their areas of work. The Alliance is led by an elected Chairperson and Executive Committee. Gender Links as the coordinating NGO provides the secretariat. In 2013, the Alliance adopted a concentric structure, with the Secretariat at the centre, the Alliance Executive Committee, 15 national networks, and five regional theme clusters.

The Alliance has held several meetings to plan and strategise its work at a national, regional and global level. The Alliance work has been documented in a book, and DVD, Roadmap to Equality.