SADC Secretariat created the Gender Unit in 1997 with the mandate to work with the national gender machineries to facilitate Member States to have appropriate working tools and instruments to promote gender mainstreaming and to build capacity of Member States as well as the Secretariat to mainstream gender into all national and regional policies, programmes and activities. The SADC Secretariat developed a Gender Mainstreaming Toolkit in 2009 to assist all sectors to identify gender issues and define mechanisms for integrating them into policies, plans, programmes and actions. The SADC Guidelines on Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) were developed in 2014 to facilitate the development of good public finance management practice that ensures national budgets are practically addressing gender equality priorities and commitments. The GRB Guidelines have been used to capacitate planning entities including the finance ministry and other ministries in SADC Member States. However, progress is still limited and there is need to continue capacity building efforts on gender mainstreaming at both regional and national levels. In 2019, the SADC Secretariat conducted an assessment of Gender Mainstreaming in the SADC Integration Agenda and the results of this assessment are informing the capacity gaps to be addressed. Following this assessment, the Regional Gender Mainstreaming Resource Toolkit of 2009 is under review to strengthen its use in building technical capacity on gender mainstreaming at regional and national levels, including the Secretariat.
