Meeting with Dr E Cornegay and Dr E Pahad on National Machinery and National Gender Policy

Dr. B. Cornegay gave a presentation of her work in the Office of the Status of Women (OSW):

A provincial programme had been established with nearly all the provinces participating, KwaZulu Natal not yet having come on board. A gender unit has only recently been established in the Western Cape.

A policy document, the National Gender Policy, has been prepared which is not yet available. It states the intention of what government would like to do. It has been established that the majority of women are living below the poverty datum line.

It was not for the OSW to prescribe solutions. As yet only two ministries have policy documents on gender: Water Affairs and Justice.

The main aim is gender mainstreaming. There is a need to de-racialise and de-genderise South Africa's institutions.

A national gender audit has been taking place since 1994 in order to establish priorities. In order to show what progress has been made, an audit must show how visible gender mainstreaming has been. In this way a national action plan will be able to be developed. The OSW must be able to assist the government in establishing benchmarks to advance the cause of gender equality. The main mandate of the OSW is to see how the government service is operating.

To implement the audit they will use a questionnaire and canvas the 27 ministries; in addition, the nine provinces have to be part of this. This questionnaire should be able to establish how women access the government as well as how are things being transformed in so far as race and gender are concerned.

Deputy Minister Essop Pahad of the Office of the Deputy President said their National Gender Policy document has not yet been cleaned up and so cannot be circulated. He was prepared to let the Chairperson and other political parties have sight of final draft. He went on to say that Dr Cornegay has a lot on her plate with many gender issue responsibilities in the wider African context relating to the OAU and SADC. Although Cabinet had requested that no more green and white papers be released before the reopening of Parliament, he would try to ensure that this green paper be released as soon as possible.

In response to questions from the Chairperson, the following points were made about the OSW:

- The Budget from government only covers salaries and administration. Donors cover funding of activities: Demark has given approximately R1.5 million and the Dutch about R500, 000. The Danish funding will end in August this year. The total funding is R2,5 million. It was pointed out that the Commission on Gender Equality have a budget of R2 million which is being increased to R10 million.

- It will take about a year before a definitive document on the audit is available.

- The OSW and the Commission on Gender Equality work very closely together.

- It was difficult to say how many gender focal points exist at the moment in government and provinces.

- Mr Pahad said the OSW will not solve all problems. A broad approach is needed and its job is not to work with rural women but deal with gender transformation in government institutions . We cannot expect the OSW to have all the answers.

- A big question remains as to whether local government has the willingness and capacity to deliver. The Commission on Gender Equality needs to work on this as well.

- He pointed out that there were no men on this parliamentary committee and men are needed to show that the empowerment of women is also a male problem in South Africa.