Gender equality remains priority in SADC region – Executive Secretary
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) – Gender equality remains a priority in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region as challenges continue to hamper efforts to attain gender parity particularly in the political sector, according to the Community’s Executive Secretary, Dr. Stergomena Lawrence Tax.
“Significant progress has been made in addressing the factors that hinder attainment of equality between men and women, boys and girls, since the adoption of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development in 2008,” she said on Sunday in in a statement marking International.Women’s Day 2020.
Challenges hampering efforts to attain gender parity in the 16-nation regional grouping are “particularly in the political sector, and women continue to experience inequalities in different spheres of life.”
Elaborating, she said that women’s representation in politics and decision making processes remains below the regional targets as agreed by Member States when the Gender Protocol was adopted, as the regional average remains below the aspired parity, standing at 23.2% in 2018.
In the area of women’s representation and participation in politics and decision-making processes, Tax mentioned Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe as Member States that have significantly increased women’s representation in their respective parliaments as a result of a raft of measures that they have put in place at national level.
In addition, she said that SADC partner States continue to make good progress in ensuring access to education by women and girls through effective policy measures, such as the globally-acclaimed Education For All (EFA) movement, and using affirmative action in the education sector, which has effectively improved enrolment of girls in schools. In this regard, gender parity in enrolment has been reached in schools.
This year’s commemoration of International Women’s Day is under the theme I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights. It concerns advancing gender equality and promoting women’s rights in line with the commitments agreed in Beijing, China, at the Fourth World Conference on Women in September 1995.
“The commemoration gives us a unique opportunity to reflect on the progress made in addressing gender inequality and inequity in the SADC region,” Tax remarked, calling upon the Community members “to fully capacitate their respective structures and enhance implementation of the gender equality commitments that they committed to at regional, continental and global levels; challenge gender norms; break gender stereotypes; address gender based violence; and achieve a world where all people have equal rights and opportunities.”
SADC Member States are: Angola, Botswana, Comoros, DR Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
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