National Policy Framework for Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality : Parliament's Gender Conference

Meeting report

JOINT MONITORING COMMITTEE ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE QUALITY OF LIFE AND STATUS OF WOMEN
28 June 2001

Deputy Chairperson: Ms M P Themba

Documents Distributed:  
South Africa’s National Policy Framework For Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality (Executive Summary)
 
SUMMARY
Dr Ellen Kornegay from the Office on the Status of Women in the President’s Office gave a presentation on the National Gender Plan. The presentation focussed on the role of the Office on the Status of Women with respect to the policy document. Minister Pahad did not attend. The committee was given a briefing on the Gender Conference.

MINUTES
Office on the Status of Women
Dr E Kornegay clarified the contents, the drafting process and the relation of the document, South Africa’s National Policy Framework For Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality, to the Office on the Status of Women, provincial and national departments.

The Office on the Status of Women’s mission statement is to establish mechanisms and procedures that will advance the Government towards gender equality. The Policy Document is a result of the synthesis of consultations before the Office on the Status of Women was formed in 1997, as well as a June 1998 consultation of a cross-section from NGOs, academia and political parties. The comments of a review by this committee in October 1998 were then integrated into the final document. Each of the National Departments were issued with a section in Chapter 2, such as ‘Women and Housing’, all of which were reviewed by Stats S.A.

Dr Kornegay emphasised the nature of the policy framework as a generic document, the purpose of which is to explore the basic framework geared towards Gender Equality. An integrated approach means that the policy outlines a framework which will be filled in by each sector themselves. This decentralised approach means that delivery occurs in each of the 27 sectors and 9 provinces themselves. It also emphasises a ‘basic needs’ approach where empowerment is not an end in itself but a means to an end, that of equal rights for women in all spheres of society.

The Beijing Platform of Action gave the key features for situational analysis. The Departments themselves would need to expand on these general issues. The indicators refer to the ‘end’, they are used to measure what is hoped will be achieved against what is actually being achieved. The Co-ordination framework is a network of existing regional, subregional and commonwealth structures. It must necessarily reflect realities of how the cabinet has been structured, as gender programs run parallel to National departments. The OSW is the principle co-ordinating structure. It is necessary to make a distinction between the internal and external transformation of government. External refers to deliverables, the actual service a department provides to society at large; internal refers to the organisation of the gender machinery within the government. The government is divided into five clusters: international relations, justice, economic and social. Each cluster has a Gender Focal Point, these are implementing units within departments that monitor and implement the gender policy.

The Gender Audit done in January 1998 was done to assess the structure of each department. Dr Kornegay explained that it is not possible to deliver a sustained programme without the correct service structure in place. The Audit was done by Gender Focal Points to ensure that organisational and evaluative frameworks were in place in departments including Housing, Finance, Home Affairs, the SAP and Arts, Science and Culture. A questionaire was developed in consultation with the National and provincial OSW, a distinction was made between political and administrative work. The results were differential gender programs and definitions of terms in every province. As part of Gender Mainstreaming the OSW has undertaken training of Gender Focal Points to ensure uniformity of general aims.

Questions
HIV/AIDS: The issue of HIV/AIDS was raised by a committee member. She expressed concern that although this document does address the issue more than the December 2000 draft it was still very minimally dealt with, especially since the UN had issued an official statement on the threat of HIV/AIDS to South African women. Another member commented that there would be a hearing in October, which would throw more light on the HIV/AIDS issue.

Dr Kornegay asked this member to specify what she would like to see in the policy on this issue. The member replied that she was critical of the fact that HIV/AIDS was named as a subordinate issue (to Women and Health) but not addressed as a ‘crisis’ and that there was no mention of ‘how’ to address the problem.

Dr. Kornegay responded that this is a policy document, not an action plan. It ensured that structures were in place to monitor work within the cluster of ministries that deal with specific issues. The Deputy Chairperson called a point of order to remind the committee that they were examining a policy document.

Gender Machinery: The issue of the problem of actual delivery at provincial level was raised. Members asked how to ensure that provinces have the structures and policies in place. Further questions were raised regarding how this framework translates into action.

Dr Kornegay responded that there are eight provincial OSWs, except in Gauteng. At a provincial level each department develops its own program according to the policy framework, of statement of the problem, situational analysis, and structure, following the policy document chapter by chapter. This is followed by two day provincial policy hearings: DAY 1- premier, executive MECs, senior managers; DAY 2- civil society, including NGO’s and provincial political leadership. A three-year training program is set up for provincial OSWs.

Ms S Nqodi asked how these hearings inform the policy document itself. Programs had to be submitted before a hearing could take place, these provincial programs were made available to members on request from the OSW. Dr Kornegay said that the ‘98 report and the Beijing +5 report were being collapsed into a single report, the CEDAW report. A second report would be informed by these hearings. More transparency of the selection process of trainers and trainees was requested. Dr Kornegay explained that provincially skills were limited in the area of policy analysis. Thus the OSW devised a program to train two people per province to fill these conceptual gaps in policy making, selected provincially by supervisors and by consultants from the OSW. The training was UNDP funded. Dr Kornegay noted that Gauteng had refused to participate in this training program.

The Deputy Chairperson, Ms P Themba,  commented on the need for a member to return to Gauteng with the mission of changing this. Another member agreed that exclusion of Gauteng from the OSW training was unacceptable as the women had been excluded from this decision. 

 

Dr Kornegay explained that the OSW had held four unsuccessful meetings with Gauteng, which does not have an OSW but a policy unit and thus a lack of core gender people trained in the policy document. It was commented that there seemed to be more positive developments in Gauteng. However, Ms S Nkomo, gender specialist of the OSW, explained that up until now the Gauteng premier has wanted gender policy handled by the Department of social welfare, which goes against Gender Mainstreaming.

Ms Themba emphasised that gender mainstreaming meant the OSW had to be in the Office of the Premier, not in separate departments, to ensure the monitoring process. Ms Themba thanked representatives of the OSW for coming from Pretoria to consolidate its relationship with the committee.

Parliament’s PPU Gender Conference
Ms L Rhoda briefed the committee on the PPU’s Gender Conference on the 25 and 26 July. The conference organisation is being done by BE communications (021 683 0230).  Ms Rhoda asked for the committee’s approval of Guest speakers.  One member requested clarity on the role of NGOs at the conference. The deputy chairperson explained that each province is to submit four names from four different organisations who will then be invited to the conference by the PPU. Dr Kornegay commented that the conference topics seemed to be output focussed without examination of actual machinery in place to achieve these ends. She suggested a paper should be done on this, which could eventually be submitted to the ANC Women’s League.

The deputy chairperson made an appeal to everyone to attend the conference. Members requested sponsorship by the committee. Ms Rhoda replied that the conference falls within the constituency period, thus members should use their vouchers to attend. She called for confirmation of attending members.

Ms Themba said that it was possible to sponsor one representative from each province, she urged that these should not all be ANC members.

The meeting was adjourned.