WUNRN
DEVELOPMENT-SOUTHERN AFRICA:
More Women, Please
Moyiga
Nduru
MASERU, Aug 19 (IPS) - The annual
summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) wrapped up Friday
with a call to speed up the process of increasing women's representation at all
levels of government in the 14-nation body.
"By the time we meet in
Maseru again, say in ten years, I would like to see at least three or four women
heads of state among you," Lesotho's monarch, Letsie the Third, told a banquet
for the all-male SADC leaders held in the capital of Maseru, where the two-day
meeting took place. Female delegates present at the ceremony responded to his
remarks with deafening ululation.
SADC had set 2005 as the deadline for
having 30 percent of decision-making posts in member states occupied by women,
reflecting demands in the Platform of Action developed at the Fourth World
Conference on Women -- held in the Chinese capital of Beijing, in 1995.
While not all countries achieved this goal, last year's summit -- held
in Botswana's capital, Gaborone -- set a goal of 50 percent representation in
line with African Union targets.
"We noted the slow progress made by
member states in attaining the set target and urged member states to strive
towards the attainment of the 50 percent representation of women in these
positions as approved by Summit 2005," Tomothy Thahane, Lesotho's foreign
affairs minister and chairman of the SADC Council of Ministers, told
journalists.
According to the June 2006 edition of the 'SADC Gender
Monitor', published by the Harare-based Southern African Research and
Documentation Centre, "Southern Africa has experienced a greater increase of
women in decision-making positions since the Beijing conference than anywhere
else in the world."
"The average representation of women in the
parliaments of the region now stands at 20 percent, with Mozambique and South
Africa having reached 30 percent or above," noted the document.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe also weighed in on the issue.
"We don't just need women presidents because they are women, but we need
good presidents. We have a number of women vice presidents in this region; maybe
one day women presidents would emerge out of them," he said.
This was in
reference to Zimbabwean Vice President Joyce Majuru, and South African Deputy
President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Luisa Diogo was appointed Mozambique's first
female prime minister in 2004.
A communiqué issued at the end of the
summit further reaffirmed SADC's commitment to 50 percent women's representation
in decision-making posts.
There was disappointment in the organisation's
record on other issues.
"In (the SADC summit) in Mauritius in 2004, I
explained then that I was an old man in a hurry. I am now an older old man in a
greater hurry than was the case in 2004. You will therefore appreciate why I am
perturbed by the slow rate of implementation of our programmes," outgoing SADC
chairman Festus Mogae, the president of Botswana, said at the summit.
"The implementation of our programmes does not show that we remain
committed to the achievement of the milestones towards the attainment of SADC's
full integration, namely the free trade area, customs union and common market,"
he added.
The organisation has pledged to institute a free trade area by
2008, a common customs union by 2010, a common market by 2015, monetary union by
2016 -- and a single currency by 2018.
In addition, Southern Africa --
home to about 230 million people -- faces a massive hurdle in the form of the
AIDS pandemic. According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS,
almost a third of all HIV-positive persons live in the region.
"We still
remain the epicentre of HIV and AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, which together
with food insecurity are amongst the major challenges of our region," observed
Mogae.
"Last year alone, three million HIV- and AIDS-related deaths were
recorded, two million of which were in the SADC region. Food insecurity no doubt
compounds the infection rate."
Mogae also lamented that the construction
of new premises for the SADC secretariat in Gaborone, and recruitment of staff,
was being accomplished some five years behind schedule. Building is due to start
in March 2007.
In its final communiqué, the summit noted that while SADC
recorded overall growth of five percent in 2005, the region remained below the
seven percent target set by the United Nations for developing nations to achieve
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Eight goals were agreed on by
global leaders at the U.N. Millennium Summit in 2000, in a bid to tackle the
leading causes of under-development by 2015.
The MDGs aim at halving
extreme hunger and poverty, achieving universal primary education, reducing
maternal and child mortality, and promoting gender equality.
The goals
also focus on reversing the spread of AIDS and other diseases, ensuring
environmental sustainability and creating global partnerships to tackle issues
such as unfair trade rules.
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