About the SADC Gender Unit

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.

Overall Goal

The Gender Unit is responsible for advising on matters pertaining to gender mainstreaming and empowerment strategies and providing strategic direction in gender mainstreaming to the SADC Secretariat and Member States. With Gender Mainstreaming the Unit is responsible for infusing the perspectives and strategic needs of both women and men in policy and programme planning, formulation and implementation. The Gender Unit also promotes the full and equal participation of women and men in all decision making processes at all levels through gender analysis to identify access variations and differential impacts on women and men of all projects, programmes and policies. In using the above, measures could be developed to bring out equitable participation and equal benefits for women and men.

The functions and responsibilities of the SADC Gender Unit, among others, include facilitating, coordinating and monitoring the implementation of SADC Gender Commitments at both national and regional levels. The Gender Unit is also tasked with the mandate to facilitate the development and application of skills in gender analysis and gender mainstreaming in policy and programme/project development, review, planning and budgeting. This strategy is employed in order to ascertain that women and men are equal participants and beneficiaries of the development processes coordinated at the regional and national levels, to ensure that a gender perspective permeates the entire SADC Programme of Action and Community Building Initiative. The six (6) priority areas of the SADC Gender Programme as stipulated by the RISDP are;

• Policy Development and Harmonization
• Gender Mainstreaming
• Institutional Strengthening and Capacity Building
• Women’s Empowerment Programmes including; Women’s Human Rights; Women and Girl Child Education; Violence Against Women and Children; Sexual and Reproductive Health & Rights including HIV and AIDS; Women’s Economic Empowerment; Media and Information; and Women in Politics and Decision Making.
• Communication, Information Sharing and Networking;
• Monitoring & Evaluation.

Strategies

• Accelerate the development of explicit gender policies and establish and strengthen national gender coordination machineries; harmonize them at regional level, and develop a regional gender policy;
• Ratify international instruments on gender equality, incorporate their provisions into national laws through constitutional and legislative reforms, and set up appropriate enforcement mechanisms and institutions to deliver necessary services.
• Mainstream gender into all sectoral policies, programmes and activities at national and regional level through gender responsive planning, policy development and implementation, gender capacity building and training, and the collection of gender disaggregated data.
• Adopt women's economic empowerment policies and strategies in order to address the inequalities in access to, and control of resources; develop specific programmes and put in place gender-responsive budgeting initiatives.
• Adopt deliberate and positive measures such as affirmative action, with a view to accelerating gender equality in political and decision- making positions;
• Implement gender capacity building and training programmes at national and regional levels, and disseminate best practices to ensure wide spread diffusion.
• Eradication and reduction of all forms of violence against women and children