Southern African Regional Gender Mainstreaming Symposium
Theme: “Has Mainstreaming become an Outlived Paradigm: Is it Protecting Women and Girls in the Era of HIV and AIDS?”
5 - 7 April 2005, Orion Hotel – Mbabane, Swaziland

Symposium Announcement: Call for Participants

Immediately following the 1995 United Nations Conference on Women, most countries adopted national strategies for mainstreaming gender into development initiatives. Non-governmental organisations embarked on a new formula for addressing gender inequality through the development of gender mainstreaming policies. This has been a generally accepted, undisputed approach to countering the feminization of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in southern Africa, like many other regions globally. Mainstreaming has adopted a posh stance in development circle, indicating an overall solution to issues of concern.

It seems that whilst the introduction of the mainstreaming process has been noble, its enormous implications and multiple influencing factors were inadequately considered and planned for prior to its large-scale application. Significant debate has emerged towards determining whether mainstreaming approaches have worked, and if so then why has their impact not multiplied fast enough to counter gender inequalities hindering development, and if they have not worked, why not ?

Why is it that almost a decade after ratifying and acceding the Beijing and Dakar Platforms for Action , after the Convention of Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women , engendering processes of the Millennium Development Goals, Maputo Declaration on Gender Mainstreaming , SADC Declaration on Gender and Development and various other treaties and conventions, southern African countries continue to battle with: gender power imbalances, gender based violence, gender based stigma and discrimination, feminization of poverty and ultimately feminization of the HIV/AIDS epidemic?
It is the recognition of these, and other, disparities that has prompted Southern Africa HIV/AIDS Information Dissemination Services (SAfAIDS) to host a southern African Regional Gender Mainstreaming Symposium in Swaziland from 5 - 7 April 2005. The Symposium is anticipated to draw developmental workers, gender, humanitarian empowerment and HIV/AIDS experts and activists, representatives of FBOs, NGOs, CBOs, UN Agencies, SADC bodies and groups/organisations of PLWHA, among other key stakeholders, to:
• Identify gaps needing urgent redress in HIV and AIDS related gender mainstreaming efforts in policy and programming initiatives in the region, and facilitate subsequent countering strategy development
• Provide a platform for networking between key organizations and bodies working around gender, humanitarian empowerment and HIV and AIDS – and thus facilitate coalition building towards integrated gender, humanitarian empowerment and HIV/AIDS mainstreaming responses regionally
• Present an opportunity for meaningful exchange and dialogue around challenging and successful experiences of mainstreaming which synchronises gender , humanitarian empowerment and HIV and AIDS related efforts
Sessions shall explore Gender Mainstreaming within the following context:
• Successes and challenges of international and regional gender mainstreaming efforts: how practical have they been from an HIV/AIDS perspective?
• The “Gender Triangle of Realities”, the voices of women affected by HIV/AIDS
• Is gender mainstreaming static or dynamic: do we need a paradigm shift ?
• Has mainstreaming promoted the status of women and girls or has it overshadowed their fundamental needs?
• Harnessing the dynamics of culture, tradition and religion
• Linking gender based- violence and HIV/AIDS
• Accelerating universal access to HIV/AIDS related treatment for women and girls in southern Africa
• Policy and Legal Reform as Tools in supporting effective gender and humanitarian empowerment transformation
• Mobile mainstreaming: how have mainstreaming strategies influenced risk of women and girls in mobile/migrant populations to HIV infection?
• Mainstreaming in a humanitarian empowerment vacuum: Is this feasible?
• Women and Leadership: Mainstreaming begins at birth...leadership cuts across the life-span of woman, so does risk of HIV infection !
• Creating mass mobilization: How have mainstreaming efforts in media, the performing arts and similar mass mobilizing avenues affected HIV infection?
• The role of mainstreaming in ensuring Meaningful Involvement of People Living with or Affected by HIV/AIDS (MIPA)

The Symposium shall provide a friendly and relaxed environment to discuss critical issues around Gender Mainstreaming and HIV/AIDS, examining the relevance, effectiveness and efficacy surrounding existing mainstreaming strategies. Parallel sessions shall allow participants to focus on their specific area of interest. This Symposium is anticipated to move our thinking and responses to gender issues, influencing the direction of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, to a level demanding prompt and efficient results and impacts. Debates and dialogue at the Symposiums are expected to generate concrete lines of action and strategic designs, elevating current engendered practices in responding to HIV/AIDS, towards a truly regional agenda.

Symposium Details

• Participants are expected to arrive by the evening of 4th of April and depart anytime after the evening of the 7th April 2005
• No registration fees shall be charged
• Participants shall pay for their travel and accommodation expenses for the duration of the Symposium. The Symposium shall be held at the Orion Hotel (4 Star), 73 km outside Mbabane, Swaziland.
A special package is being offered by the Orion Hotel for participants of this Symposium: USD130/night, including all meals and accommodation
• The official language of the Symposium shall be English

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Rouzeh Eghtessadi or Joshua Chigodora

Southern Africa HIV/AIDS Information Dissemination Service
Tel: + 263 4 336194/3; 307898
Fax + 263 4 336195
Email: [email protected], [email protected]