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Southern Africa has developed a regional framework that will serve as a guide for mainstreaming gender in regional peace and security systems and processes.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat This strategy will be launched at the SADC Heads of State and Government Summit in Windhoek, August 17-18. , in Namibia.
The SADC Regional Strategy on Women and Peace and Security (2018-2022) aims to meet the challenges faced by women and children by ensuring that they participate fully in activities, peace and security programs and projects in the region.
The strategy was first presented to senior officials at their meeting. Ezulwini, the Kingdom of Eswatini, in 2017 and was then presented to the Ministerial Council of the Body for approval.
The development of the strategy involved gender and security experts from all SADC member states.
The strategy and its action plan must be implemented from 2018 to 2022 and member states invited to develop national action plans and mobilize resources to implement proposed activities in National level.
Southern Africa is making significant progress in promoting gender equality and equity in the region. However, there is a need to maintain momentum and advance the regional gender agenda, particularly in peace and security issues.
This requires an intensification of regional efforts to mainstream gender in peace processes and conflict resolution.
Although progress is being made in the development of gender mainstreaming strategies in peace and security issues, the number of women and children affected by the conflict remains high
. SADC Member States Remain Low
For example, only three SADC Member States had female Defense Ministers during the period 2009-2018. These are Botswana, Madagascar and South Africa
South Africa remains the only SADC country with a female Defense Minister who has held this post since 2012.
According to a UN Women's 2015 report, women make up less than 10% of peace negotiators in the world and only 3% of signatories to peace agreements
In this regard, it is necessary to include more of women in peace processes so that their issues are taken into account in the negotiations. During the annual meeting, SADC senior officials in charge of gender and women's issues discussed the need to speed up anti-trafficking processes; accelerate efforts to achieve 50:50 representation in policy and decision-making and for Member States that have not signed the Agreement amending the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development do so
Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique, eSwatini, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe signed the agreement amending the protocol while the Namibia and South Africa have indicated that they will sign at the SADC Summit in Namibia. and women's affairs meet before the annual meeting of SADC ministers responsible for gender and women issues.
Ministers will discuss the SADC regional program on gender and share progress made in implementing country commitments. total of 11 SADC Member States – Angola, Botswana, DRC, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Tanzania, South Africa, Seychelles, Zambia and Zimbabwe – We attended the meeting which took place from 3 to 5 July in Johannesburg. – sardc.net
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