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About the SADC Gender Unit

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Member States share a common vision of forging a future within a regional community that will result in durable peace, freedom and social justice, equitable development and sustained economic prosperity for the people of Southern Africa. The attainment of this vision involves a commitment to addressing the priority needs of reducing poverty and socio-economic inequalities among the people of the SADC region.

In this light, the SADC Heads of State and Government signed the Declaration on Gender and Development in September 1997, followed by the Addendum on the Prevention and Eradication of Violence Against Women and Children, signed in September 1998. This declaration provides the overall policy framework for the achievement of gender equality at regional level. SADC Member States are also signatories to a number of international conventions that address gender equality, such as The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Millennium Development Goals, and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa.

The Gender Unit was established in June 1996 following SADC Member States’ initiatives to mainstream gender perspectives and concerns in their policies, plans and programmes. This followed Council of Ministers’ approval for the establishment of a policy framework for mainstreaming gender in all SADC activities, and for strengthening the efforts by Member States to achieve gender equality at their meeting held in Windhoek, Namibia. In addition, the Council approved an institutional framework that included three components:

• First, the establishment of a Standing Committee of Ministers responsible for Gender/Women’s Affairs in the region.
• Secondly, the framework adopts the existing Regional Advisory Committee (RAC), which consists of one government and one NGO representative from each SADC Member State, whose task is to advise the Standing Committee of Ministers and other Sectoral Committees of Ministers on gender issues.
• Thirdly, the establishment of Gender Focal Points at the sectoral level, whose task would be to ensure that gender is taken into account in all sectoral initiatives, and is placed on the agenda of all ministerial meetings.