Signing On to Eliminating Bias
Southern Africa Sets Deadlines for Gender Equality
The August signing of the Southern African Development Community Protocol on Gender and Development by heads of states obligates their countries to meet, or at least try to meet, 23 specific targets, including reaching 50 per cent female economic ownership within seven years and halving gender violence. The protocol, pushed mainly by the South African government, must be ratified by SADC member countries, but it includes such oversight elements as a Gender and Economic Justice Network and biennial reports, with independent reports checking off on governments’ own assessments of accomplishments.
Mail and Guardian Aug 24 2008; Gender agenda
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Setting the pace for improvements
South Africa is leading its neighbours by example, and by cajoling
Colleen Lowe Morna has been the chairperson of Gender and Media South Africa and executive director of Gender Links.
South Africa trails only Sweden in the percentage of cabinet ministers who are women, and President Thabo Mbeki has made gender equality a cornerstone of his policies, the veteran women’s NGO leader Colleen Lowe Morna writes in this article (carried on a South African government site). Several other African nations, many of them in the southern part of the continent, also have made significant advances in appointing and electing women to decision-making bodies. But the next big step, which is addressed in the SADC protocol, is requiring that customary rules be trumped by national law, which usually is more oriented toward gender equality.
(if not working, copy past this link: www.info.gov.za/events/2007/SASADCgenderequality_clm_0407%20_2_.pdf )
Liberia and South Africa: Trail-blazers
The female president of Liberia visits, and thanks, South Africa
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in 2006
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia honored Thabo Mbeki’s government during a visit to South Africa, noting his role in pushing for a recent regional protocol on gender equality. Liberia, despite her being its female president, has a long way to go to reach such a goal, Johnson-Sirleaf said. But she noted how it was great efforts by women that had finally brought peace to her country after decades of turmoil.
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20-FIRST ON THE MOVE
MAY
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JULY
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