WUNRN
SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT
COMMUNITY - SADC
The SADC Member States are Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The Gender Unit was established in June 1996 following SADC Member States’
initiatives to mainstream gender perspectives and concerns in their policies,
plans and programmes. This followed Council of Ministers’ approval for the
establishment of a policy framework for mainstreaming gender in all SADC
activities, and for strengthening the efforts by Member States to achieve
gender equality at their meeting held in Windhoek, Namibia. In addition, the
Council approved an institutional framework that included three components:
The Gender Unit is responsible for advising on matters pertaining to gender
mainstreaming and empowerment strategies and providing strategic direction in
gender mainstreaming to the SADC Secretariat and Member States. With Gender
Mainstreaming the Unit is responsible for infusing the perspectives and
strategic needs of both women and men in policy and programme planning,
formulation and implementation. The Gender Unit also promotes the full and
equal participation of women and men in all decision making processes at all
levels through gender analysis to identify access variations and differential
impacts on women and men of all projects, programmes and policies. In using the
above, measures could be developed to bring out equitable participation and
equal benefits for women and men.
The functions and responsibilities of the SADC Gender Unit, among others,
include facilitating, coordinating and monitoring the implementation of SADC
Gender Commitments at both national and regional levels. The Gender Unit is
also tasked with the mandate to facilitate the development and application of
skills in gender analysis and gender mainstreaming in policy and
programme/project development, review, planning and budgeting. This strategy is
employed in order to ascertain that women and men are equal participants and
beneficiaries of the development processes coordinated at the regional and
national levels, to ensure that a gender perspective permeates the entire SADC
Programme of Action and Community Building Initiative. The six (6) priority
areas of the SADC Gender Programme as stipulated by the RISDP are;
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