Governance and peace building

Tanzania: Women need their own election manifesto

Tanzania is scheduled to hold both presidential and parliamentary elections in October this year - a prospect that is already galvanizing the country's women. Recent reports from different women groups in the country say that a series of meetings are often held to sensitize women to know their rights during elections.
Tanzania Media Women Association (TAMWA) is also planning to conduct different courses for journalists, to empower them with knowledge related to election, especially voters' education.

TAMWA is also running TV and radio spot announcements, all aimed at showing the position of women during election. The final end is one - to bring women from the back seat of the democratization process. Read more
Source: AllAfrica.com

Tanzania: Parties Must Empower Women to Contest in Elections

TANZANIA is gearing towards the Presidential, Parliamentary and Councillor elections later this year. Already there have been various activities that tell election euphoria is here.They include spots in electronic and print media that aim to mobilize people to register to vote, updating of the permanent voter register and special announcement encouraging women to take active participation in this year's general elections.

The voter registration process has been finalised and papers readied for these important undertaking. Budget estimates indicate that the National Electoral Commission (NEC) will spend about 134bn/- for this year's general elections.
This amount does not include money to be spent by other actors interested in the election such as the 16 registered political parties, election observers, the media, civil society organizations and individual candidates.

The exact amount to be spent cannot be easily estimated but the amount is huge, thus, there is need for a public debate on what must be the key issues if value has to be realized for this spending.
The ruling party is among the 16 registered political parties which have come out in the open and announced it is expected to fund raise about 50bn/- to finance this year's election alone. It has gone further to explain how much this money will be spent. Read more

DRC: UN Helps Women Fight Under-Representation in Government

The United Nations is boosting the efforts of women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to overcome decades of low female participation in politics and achieve their rightful role in governing the vast African country and rebuilding it after years of civil war.

"Achieving democratic governance is not possible without equal participation of men and women in decision-making processes," UN Development Programme (UNDP) gender expert Marie Bapu told the first national conference of Congolese women which concluded in Kinshasa, the capital, yesterday.

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Economic justice, education and training

A draft law called "Integration of a discussion of betterment of life in the Micro-Credit Programmes", that aims to improve social and economic well-being, mainly for rural zone women through funding, counselling and guiding plans, was presented Tuesday, in Luanda.

Speaking to Angop, the department chief of Family Support of the Ministry of Family and Women's Promotion (Minfamu), Santa Ernesto, said that this is the result of a three-month training she attended in Japan, promoted by the International Cooperation Agency of that country.

Santa Ernesto explained that this is the third phase of the plan that can be changed while being done by national technicians of public and private institutions, in order to be sent for evaluation in Japan, the country that will support part of the project.

According to the source, the project will be implemented for the first time in Kikombo, Sumbe district, Kwanza Sul province, and will cover people of that region, mainly women. Read more

Source: AngolaPress

Gender inequality remains rampant globally, with only 20 out of 128 economies reported to have equal legal rights for men and women in key issues for entrepreneurs and workers, a new World Bank report on Women, Business and the Law 2010 has shown. The report states that inequality occurs across all regions and income levels. But many economies have been legislating to reduce these inequalities. The new report looks at legal equity in such areas as a woman's ability to register a business, own and use property, and go to court on her own account.

"Many factors shape women's opportunities to run successful businesses and get good jobs. Equitable business regulations are one piece of the puzzle," she said.
Women, Business and the Law 2010 analyzes differences in formal laws and institutions affecting women's prospects as entrepreneurs and employees across six topics accessing institutions, using property, getting a job, dealing with taxes, building credit, and going to court.

The report is the first to measure the gender gap in policy variables using quantitative and objective data. It does not measure all aspects that matter for women's economic opportunities. For example, it does not measure access to childcare, education, or personal security. Read more

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Health, HIV and AIDS

Rape victims will no longer need a case number before getting treatment at health institutions said Health Minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi. Motsoaledi said when a rape victim arrives at a health institution, they won't be asked to produce a case number before being treated. Read more Source: BuaNews

South Africa: The President and HIV prevention
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) welcomes the implementation of the updated HIV treatment guidelines that were recently published by the South African National AIDS Council. The updated guidelines came into effect on 1 April 2010. The guidelines are available on the SANAC website at www.sanac.org.za.The updated guidelines adopt some of the recent recommendations made by the World Health Organization (WHO). Read more Source: NGOPulse

Related stories:South Africa committed to achieving universal access to ART

UNAIDS launches plan to empower women and girls to prevent HIV

The lead United Nations agency tackling the AIDS epidemic, along with rock and roll icon Annie Lennox, launched an action plan to empower women and girls to protect themselves against HIV.

Known as the Agenda for Accelerated Country Action for Women, Girls, Gender Equality and HIV (2010-2014), the five-year plan partners the UN with governments, civil society and development partners to address gender inequalities and human rights violations that put women and girls at risk for HIV infection.
“The operational plan that we are launching this morning has been needed for some time now,” Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said today at a meeting on women and HIV.

“For too long, the inequalities that affect women and girls have made them more vulnerable to HIV. For too long, societies have been unable – or unwilling – to talk about these inequalities as drivers of the epidemic. For much too long, cohesive action to address these inequalities have been lacking,” she stated. Read more

Source: UNAIDS

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Media, information and communications

Angola: Journalists told to pay greater attention to gender violence

Journalists and the society in general should be able to deal with matters linked to gender, the victims and authors, on Monday here defended the deputy minister of Mass Media, Manuel Miguel de Carvalho, Angop has learnt.
Speaking to press at the opening of a seminar on violence in society, the official said the main goal is to sensitize the society, especially journalists, to fight against this phenomenon.

In a general way, he said an act of violence takes place in a situation of interaction, when one or various authors act in a direct or indirect way, causing damages to others, being in their physical or moral integration, in their possession or symbolic and cultural participations.
"As it is a great concern of the Angolan society, the Ministry of Social Communication, through centre for training of journalists (Cefojor), in partnership with the association of women working in law career, decided to hold this meeting in order to find out ways of preventing and act against this violence", the official said. Read more

Kenya: Wanted – More females in our newsrooms

The Nation Media Group's 50th birthday bash, which was celebrated during the Pan Africa Media Conference this month, was undoubtedly one of the most high profile media events I have attended in recent months.

Participants got to hear the thoughts and opinions of some of the most celebrated politicians, media personalities, businesspeople, scholars, journalists and activists on the continent, including Rwanda' President Paul Kagame, Kenya's Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, Sudanese tycoon Mo Ibrahim, not to mention the top brass at the Nation Media Group, which was represented by none other than His Highness the Aga Khan. Even rock star Bono made an appearance.

But as I listened to speaker after speaker talking about issues, such as the role of the media in promoting democracy in Africa and how Africa's image has been shaped by the local and international media, I kept wondering why there were hardly any women on the various panels and high-profile events. Although a significant number of participants at the conference were female, the keynote speakers, moderators and panelists were predominantly male.

I am not one of those people who believe that women should be represented equally in such events just for the sake of it. Affirmative action in favour of women and in the interest of gender balance is sometimes necessary, but when it is done for cosmetic or politically-correct reasons, it can backfire on all women. Read more

Ghana: Media devote minimal space to gender issues

A recent study on the Ghanaian media's coverage of gender issues has revealed that out of a total 6053 issues in news editorials, only 1.6% (96 editorial frequency) were given to women, compared to issues on children which rated 2% (126 editorial frequency) and the youth 1.9% (115 editorial frequency).
The study titled "Gender Equality Contesting Media Spaces: The Coverage of Gender in the Ghanaian Media" measured the overall editorial focus or attention to issues on women from the year 2005 to 2009.

A breakdown shows that in 2009, attention on gender coverage dropped to 4%, from a consistent representation of 7% recorded in 2006, 2007 and 2008 , indicating a 3% decline in projection of gender issues by news editors.
Out of 881 news editorials recorded in the year 2005, 0.3% focused on women, 0.2% on the youth while 0.4% was on children, constituting 1% of the total number of issues raised by news editors on gender.

According to researchers the purpose of this study was to examine how the Ghanaian media covered general gender issues and other non-gender news content based on newspaper editorials by selected media from 2005 - 2009.
It is hoped results would sharpen civic engagement processes towards gender - media representations and would help policy makers to specifically engage the media as a tool for promoting gender equality for effective good governance in Ghana. Read more
Source: Ghanaweb

Tanzania: Awareness campaign on women’s rights gets boost

Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) has embarked on an awareness campaign that aims to give women an insight on their rights.

This was said during the launch of a book titled; “Tafsiri ya Kiswahili ya Mkataba wa Nyongeza wa Haki za Wanawake Afrika,” which is a translation of the Maputo Protocol that guarantees comprehensive rights to women, including the right to take part in the political process.

The Maputo protocol also offers social and political equality with men, to control of their reproductive health and an end to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
LHRC Acting Executive Director, Ms Imelda Urrio said that the centre would distribute the book to libraries in universities, schools and to other non-governmental organizations in the country.

Ms Urio said the translation of the book is aimed to enable people, especially women, to know their rights so that they can fight for them. Read more
Source: Tanzania Daily News

Tanzania: Women, pupils to be trained in Land, Marriage Act

A total of one hundred women and primary school pupils in Kibaha town, Coast region have started undergoing a five day seminar on the Land Ownership and Marriage Act for the women to enable them to know their basic rights.

The training coordinator of a non-organisation, Kibaha Paralegal Centre (KPC), Mr Mohamed Kiaratu said here today that the seminar which is financed by the Foundation for Civil Society (FCS), would also involve other people including religious leaders, street chairmen, Ward Executive Officers (WEOs), divisional officer and elders.

The coordinator said that the participants who will come from five wards of Tumbi, Mkuza, Kongowe, Misugusugu and Pangani in the town would learn land ownership in accordance with village land act number five and urban land act number four of 1999. Read more Source: Tanzania Daily News

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Integrated Approaches/Monitoring and Evaluation

Website to Serve As Global Hub for Ending Gender Based Violence

UNIFEM has recently launched a Website that uses comprehensive interactive training tools and resources to empower and inform individuals about gender-based violence. The Global Virtual Knowledge Centre contains a number of informational sections on issues such as prevention, policy and legislation to empower and educate the user on the issue of gender based violence.

The module Men&Boys, for example, was developed in conjunction with an organization called MenEngage, which is a global alliance of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and UN agencies that engage boys and men in achieving gender equality.

Modern tools and resources are important now more than ever as, according to UNIFEM, up to 70 per cent of women have still experienced some form of physical or sexual abuse over their lifetime. The Global Virtual Knowledge Center will essentially act as an accessible online resource where activists, victims, researchers, NGO's and policy-makers can learn from one another's diverse experiences on the issue and use systematic approaches to working towards ending violence against women and girls. Read more
Source: AllAfrica.com

Africa: Lax on CEDAW reporting

African countries, known for their penchant to ratify international conventions and other instruments, are not doing well when it comes to providing periodical reports on progress made in implementing the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Read more Source: GL Opinion and COmmentary Service

Global: 2010 Commission on Status of Women (CSW) advances key issues for world’s women.

For more than 3,500 civil society representatives and hundreds of government delegates who travelled, often long distances, to New York for this year’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), was an occasion to mark large and small victories over the last 15 years and to focus on the challenges that remain.
The Commission discussed the following four areas of priority importance to women:
• Maternal mortality
• Violence against women
• Role of women in decision-making
• New gender entity

Maternal mortality The Millennium Development Goal to improve maternal health – and the affiliated target of reducing the rate of maternal mortality by three-quarters – has been the most elusive target of all. The lack of decisive progress is matched by a lack of reliable statistics, and a failure to attract large-scale support. The selection of this issue as the “top priority” of the host country, Canada, for the G8 meeting in June, there is reason to believe that the imperative to save mothers’ and infants’ lives will gain added momentum over the remaining five years of the drive to reach the MDGs by 2015.

Violence against women
Violence against women is a pandemic behind closed doors – it is calculated that up to 70 per cent of women experience violence in their lifetime. It not only inflicts personal suffering, but also “undermines development, generates instability, and makes peace in society much harder to achieve,” as noted by the Secretary-General at a panel discussion in a panel. In the meantime, action on the Secretary-General’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign has moved to the regional and national levels, with particular emphasis on the first of the campaign’s five goals – the adoption and implementation of national laws on violence against women.

Role of women in decision-making
An Inter-Parliamentary Union survey found that women comprise 18.8 per cent of members of parliament worldwide – an all-time high, although this falls short of the 30 per cent target advocated in Beijing.
Rachel Mayanja, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, describes the representation of women in parliaments as “an accountability issue.” She finds that countries where women are under-represented in government tend to be “less inclusive, less egalitarian and less democratic.” Under-representation in decision-making positions can be self-perpetuating, in that it limits the incorporation of gender perspectives into policies. “History has taught us that any peace not built by and for women is far less likely to deliver real and lasting benefits,” said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at the Commission 15 years after her seminal address to the Women’s Conference in Beijing.

New gender entity
The General Assembly adopted a resolution late last year paving the way for the creation of a new UN body for gender equality and the advancement of women, and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has submitted his proposals for the entity to the General Assembly for their consideration.
The importance of moving ahead with the creation of this new entity repeatedly and emphatically highlighted throughout the Commission’s 15-year review session. His plan would merge four separate UN units with differing mandates:
• the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI);
• the Division for the Advancement of Women in the Department for Economic and Social Affairs (DAW/DESA); the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM); and,
• the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW).

There has been strong support for the creation of a unified body that would strengthen the participation of women in international affairs and give the UN a stronger mandate on women’s issues. However, different strategic approaches have emerged from the discussion of this issue. Some Member States stress gender equality, ensuring full rights and legal protection. Many from the developing world place more emphasis on “advancement,” entailing a strong pro-women development agenda.

Source: UN in focus

Read more about CSW54 Daily Links - a daily newspaper published at CSW 54 by Gender Links working with Africa Women and Child Feature Service.

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Explanation of the Barometer

The Roadmap to Equality:
Southern Africa Gender and Development Protocol Barometer is a regional e-news- letter that tracks the ratification and implementation of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development. It is produced by Gender Links in partnership with the Southern Africa Gender Protocol Alliance and the Gender and Media Southern Africa (GEMSA) Network with support from DFID and UNIFEM.

The Barometer will enable both state and non-state actors to track progress whether governments are on the way to meeting set targets in the Gen- der Protocol which provides a road map for achieving gender equality in the region.

The new and updated Baro- meter will focus on the articles of the Protocol namely Consti- tutional and Legal Rights; Gender and Governance; Edu- cation and Training; Economic Justice; Gender Based Violence; Health; HIV and AIDS; Peace Building and Conflict Reso- lution; and Media, Infor- mation and Communication.

It is essential that gender and women’s rights activists and governments track the impact of their work in order to measure whether or not they are making a difference. The Barometer is a tool that can be used firstly, to track progress in advancing gender equality in the region and also to hold governments in Southern Africa accountable to the commitments they have made to address inequality through their obligations to international and regional in- struments and in particular the SADC Gender Protocol.

Global averages of women in political decision making. These figures are from the combined houses in parliament, that is the upper house and lower house as of 28 February 2010. Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)

Nordic countries 42.1%
Americas 22.1%
Europe - OSCE member countries
including Nordic countries 21.4%
Europe - OSCE member countries
excluding Nordic countries 19.9%
Asia 18.5%
Sub-Saharan Africa 18.8%
Pacific 15.3%
Arab States 9.5%

• South Africa

3 May 2010
18h00 - 20h30 World Press Freedom Day Seminar: Gender, communitry, media and Soccer 2010 Seminar,
Gender Links Offices, 9 Derrick Avenue, Cyrildene, Johannesburg Contact: gmdc@genderlinks.org.za

· South Africa

World Press Freedom day celebration, Media and civil society, 3 May 2010, CIVICUS House, Indaba room

• South Africa

11-12 May 2010 Africa Wide Campaign to end Violence against Women and Girls; Regional Consultative Meeting, Johannesburg Contact: Nicole.anthoo@gmail.com

SIGNING AND RATIFICATION OF SADC GENDER PROTOCOL

List of countries that have signed

Angola
DRC
Lesotho
Madagascar
Malawi
Mauritius
Mozambique
Namibia
South Africa
Swaziland
Tanzania
Zambia
Zimbabwe

List of countries that have not singed

Botswana
Mauritius

List of countries that have ratified

Namibia
Zambia
Zimbabwe

List of countries that have not ratified

Angola
DRC
Lesotho
Madagascar
Malawi
Mauritius
Mozambique
South Africa
Swaziland
Tanzania