sadc needs to act!

The status quo at the moment is that a number of SADC countries have acceded to many international and regional conventions and protocols that facilitate the rights of young women. What SADC should actually be doing is adopting mechanisms that accelerate gender equality as countries are already failing to achieve them. In a report released on the sidelines of the SADC Heads of State Summit, Gender Links, an organisation that spearheads efforts to promote gender equality said governments in the region were not doing enough. With only five years to go for governments to meet the 28 targets in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development, activists have given a 54% progress rating, down one percent from a baseline study last year. Country scores ranged from 79% in Namibia to 38% in Zimbabwe. Now with this in mind another protocol will not make countries achieve the set goals but action is ideally important.

It is also important for us to realise that a protocol is in fact just a set of guidelines or rules. Yes the countries might have come to an agreement but it is not automatic that anything will be done about it or implementation may be very slow. The problem that lies is that African countries are failing to implement policies and something has to be done about that. One way of doing it is to put pressure on governments underlying social, economic, political and healthcare issues that contribute to dismal states of young women in these countries today. To accelerate gender equality and make sure both young women and older women’s rights are recognised and observed there is a need to encourage nations to have a strong political will to actually want to achieve these goals that they have set out. The lack of political will is apparent because countries like to blame technicalities in their countries for them not to even sign any treaties. States are seemingly unwilling to protect women to the extent required by these protocols. This shows that African nations do not have the will to actually be bound to observing the rights of women and to tying themselves up to obligations with women that it may have set out. This is ideally a problem that having another protocol will not solve. A cultivation of the mentality and deep set thinking for example within the political parties in a country is the one of the things that will solve this inherent lack of political will. Governing parties should want to bring about a change then all the policies will be made with the gender sensitivity that is required.