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Towards Beijing +10: Which way Southern Africa?
A Report on the SADC Gender and Women’s Empowerment NGO Focal Points Working Session on Implementation of
the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action
held on 25 April 2004 Lusaka, Zambia
Contact: blopi@sardc.net
Posted with permission of Barbara Lopi, Southern African Research and Documentation Centre, Harare
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Annexes:
Background
Momentum is steadily rising again in southern Africa as the end of the United Nations (UN) decade for women and the count down to the global review of achievements of the decade in 2005
nears.1 During the UN 23rd General Assembly Special Session on Beijing +5, governments unanimously agreed to regularly assess further implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action
(BPFA).2 This was done with the view of bringing together all parties involved in 2005 to assess progress and consider new initiatives, as appropriate, 10 years after the adoption of the BPFA and 20 years after the adoption of the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies.
There is general consensus that processes to review progress and chart the way forward for the next decade need to be held the world over. The processes should lead to a stronger focus on the implementation and impacts, sharing of experiences and good practices, identification of gaps and challenges, increased political will and clear commitments from governments.
The activities to support the preparatory process towards the 2005 review of progress in advancing the empowerment of women and promoting gender equality and what happens thereafter are in progress. The Africa review of progress in achieving the BPFA is rapidly approaching (October 2004). In light of this, a sub-regional meeting to review progress by Southern African Development Community (SADC) in achieving the Beijing commitments was convened by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Lusaka, Zambia, from 26 – 29 April 2004 (the April Meeting). This initiative took placed with the support of SADC.
The main goal of this meeting was to debate, agree on and document progress, challenges and constraints in achieving the Beijing commitments, as well as develop a future agenda. Governments in SADC are also preparing national reports that document their progress in realizing the Beijing commitments. Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) are, parallel to this, expected to produce shadow reports, or alternatively make concrete inputs into the national reports. NGOs in southern Africa have been instrumental in the advancement of the gender agenda, with more governments relying on the information, input, and articulation of issues by NGOs in order to have a valid national picture on the progress and situation of women since Beijing.
Since NGOs were on the agenda to make an input in the April meeting from their perspective, SARDC-WIDSAA and the Non Governmental Organisations’ Coordinating Council for Gender and Development (NGOCC), with funding from the Southern African Regional Offices for the Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries (HIVOS) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), convened a one-day working session on the 25th April 2004, to consolidate the NGO position and make a strategic input into the main April Meeting from 26 – 29 April 2004.
Footnotes:
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SARDC - WIDSAA (Southern African Research and Documentation Centre, Women in Development Southern Africa Awareness)
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ibid
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