A tremendous achievement has been made by our sisters and brothers in southern Africa. The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development came into force in August 2008. Hailed by gender rights activists as a major breakthrough in protecting and promoting opportunities for women, both politically and economically, the long overdue gender protocol was signed at the SADC summit in South Africa. The protocol outlines 25 articles setting goals ranging from equal access to justice and education to constitutional protections for women’s rights. It will go a long way towards the protection of women in the region, who like many others around the continent bear the brunt of social injustice like the lack of access to clean water, poor healthcare, and access to economic opportunities or adequate protection before the law.

We believe that the gender protocol will kick start a turn of events in women’s rights and their participation in economic development, not only in southern Africa but in the entire continent. The protocol calls for 50 percent representation by women at all levels of government by 2015, a benchmark that already aligns with the 50 percent parity within African Union structures. It further calls for member states to put in place legislative measures which guarantee that political and policy structures are gender sensitive. It also calls for governments in the region to prohibit all forms of gender based violence, including marital rape. On health issues, the protocol calls for necessary steps to be taken to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS among women, men, girls and boys, including persons with disabilities, and particularly stresses the importance of female-controlled methods to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS. By and large, the protocol sets specific targets and timeframes for achieving gender equality in all SADC countries as well as effective monitoring and evaluation. Member states will be required to submit national reports to the SADC summit every two years on progress made in implementing the protocol, including the development of national plans of action.

The time to act is now. SADC members must take on the implementation and domestication of the gender protocol, for instance in ensuring that the recently launched SADC Free Trade Area (FTA) is gender inclusive, taking into account the special needs of women involved in cross-border trade. According to a regional study by the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC), some 70 percent of informal cross-border traders in SADC countries are women. The study shows that although the trade is informal, it has a number of positive implications on the regional national economies. Although the SADC Trade Protocol has been criticised for being gender blind, the need to consider the gender dimensions of trade is outlined in the gender protocol. Article 17 of the draft protocol focuses on economic empowerment and encourages state parties to, by 2015, adopt policies and enact laws which ensure equal access, benefits and opportunities for women and men in business, taking into account the contribution of women in the formal and informal sectors.

The establishment of the FTA could potentially address some of the challenges that informal cross-border traders face, challenges such as excessive customs charges, cumbersome registration processes in obtaining trader's licenses, and the numerous checkpoints at border posts that frustrate most traders. Interviews with cross-border traders in SADC have revealed that the majority of traders do not know about the trade protocol and do not understand the implications it may have on trading activities. Even if informal traders were armed with information on the trade protocol, measures set out to facilitate trade would be more likely to benefit established companies than they would small traders. For example, the SADC Certificate of Origin, which validates whether or not goods qualify for duty-free entry into member states has little relevance to small traders because the document specifically requires that in cases where the producer is not the exporter, the latter should furnish the exporter with a written declaration to the effect that the goods qualify as originating in the member states. Small traders, the majority of whom are women, often deal in several product lines in small quantities and therefore making it unfeasible to acquire a certificate of origin for each product line.

Ms Deborah Walter from Gender Links in South Africa notes that the launch of the Free Trade Area presents several local and regional opportunities: ‘yet for women to benefit from increased opportunities through the production and marketing of goods and provision of services, they need access to capital, advanced technical skills, and legal protection creating environments that encourage women’s participation in entrepreneurship and business. For the impact of privitatisation and decreasing government revenues to be minimized, there must be recognition of the dual role that women play in the home and in the workplace.’

The gender protocol should complement the SADC Free Trade Agreement and advance the cause of women to benefit from the regional trade agreement and promote a better life for women in Africa. Africa will only develop when the status and lives of women are transformed.

A key factor in successful implementation is close collaboration between all actors from governments, development partners to civil society organisations including women’s rights organisations, and community-based organisations. FEMNET sends our congratulations to the entire SADC team for adopting the gender protocol and we look forward to engaging and supporting them in ‘implementing legislative and other measures to eliminate all practices which negatively affect the fundamental rights of women, men, girls and boys, such as their right to life, health, dignity, education or physical integrity’.

* For an electronic version of the SADC gender protocol, simply visit this link.
* Rachel Kagoiya is a documentalist at the African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET).
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/