Beijing +5 Review:

A South African Draft Report

Prepared by: Women's National Coalition
Supported by: EUFHR
November 1999

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1. INTRODUCTION

At this time of the Beijing +5 Review, it must be stated that the SA Government did produce a simplified version of the Beijing PFA as well as a document on different national departments commitments in 1996. However, during the same period it was engaged in the process of production of its first CEDAW report to the UN, setting up and consolidating gender machineries, the OSW and the CGE.

Its energies were also concentrated on transformation of racial relations as well as integrating the historically disadvantaged into the main stream.

Gender equality as a constitutional provision, has been highlighted both in the first five years of the new democracy and in the current five years. Indeed one of the recent achievements is the Promotion of Equality and Unfair Discrimination Bill, which aims to give expression to the clause in the constitution which outlaws discrimination and aims to promote equality (including gender equality). This bill will also redress the criticism of the First CEDAW Report by NGOs that CEDAW could not be monitored effectively when it was not anchored in the legislation of the country.

This report will therefore examine what activities or projects are perceived as Beijing PFA implementation by national and provincial government departments and NGOS.

It first refers to two major aspects of the Beijing Declaration i.e. Partnerships and Budget allocation, before analysing the implementation.

One of the partnerships is the WNC Beijing+5 Review process itself, which has been made possible through funding by the EUFHR. The process entailed workshops at provincial levels for both government and NGOS. Indeed all were done except two provincial governments. Furthermore, all national departments were targeted but it will suffice to report on those interviewed, as they constitute more than 60% which is a good sample.

The core part of the report follows the CSW guidelines as far as it is possible, except for the sections on Partnerships, budgeting and the background.

 

2. PARTNERSHIPS

The Beijing Declaration encourages partnerships between governments and civil society as well as with the private sector. The following is an extract from a paper prepared for the NGO Week (September '99). It analyses how the NGOs view the partnership with these sectors.

Challenges Facing the NGO Sector

Partnerships with other sectors

The goal of the development NGOs, in particular, is alleviation of poverty and any partnerships with other sectors should be centred on this goal. The debate on partnerships and the form it takes should be driven by strategic and tactical options towards achieving one's goals rather than whether one can or should work with a particular sector or organisation.

Partnerships between different sectors will obviously raise issues related to different approaches and understanding but the partnership could afford the opportunity for these to be debated and a common approach to be developed. The focus should be on strategic partnerships. The context should be understanding that the development needs of this country cannot be met by just one sector and that the form of partnerships will differ in relation to the objective and subjective conditions within which they emerge. Partnerships with other sectors offer the NGO sector a very real opportunity for advocating its development approach and strategic vision.

Partnerships with Government

Most of the sectors have already been working in partnership with government in the past five years. There have been both problems and success stories with these partnerships. It is clear that we need to assess what has worked and not worked. More importantly we need to prioritise developing a framework for partnerships with government. This framework should be adopted by government and be made applicable to all departments and all spheres of government.

Key elements in this framework should ensure:

• Commitment to the same goal and objectives
• The partnership begins at conceptual level through to implementation
• A clear understanding of each partners contribution
• Proper, regular feedback and communication mechanisms
• Open and equal access to information relevant and necessary for the task a The independence of each of the partners
• The notion of constructive engagement and "agreeing to disagree" a Reflective and evaluation mechanisms

Partnerships with the Private Sector

Caution remains the defining feature of CSO's relationships with the private sector. Rightly so, this is based on this sector's very slow shift in understanding of and fully committing in practice to the developmental needs of the poor in this country. This in itself is a challenge and reason for the sector to develop strong partnerships with the private sector. The partnership could for example allow the NGO sector to influence the developmental approach of CSI programmes. The Not-for-Profit Partnership (NPP) has already successfully negotiated some partnerships with the private sector, which focus on the issue of the financial sustainability of the NGO sector such as the Benefactor bank account. It is currently exploring the notion of investment companies. The work of the NPP should be fully supported, but partnerships with the private sector should be restricted to the activities of the NPP and should be based on an ethical framework.

Partnerships with other Civil Society Organisations

The historical partnerships with organised labour, religious groupings and community-based organisations has laid a firm enough foundation for this to continue. However, as can be seen from the past five years, the assumption that this historical basis does not require to continuously work at and further strengthen the relationship is a grave mistake. Changing conditions, changes in direction, changing leadership, etc. requires concerted effort and a dedication to strengthening these partnerships. One of the challenges is to ensure that these partnerships go beyond the national level to the local level. There are already several success stories of local level partnerships that should be replicated throughout the country. The partnerships with mass-based memberships organisations are particularly important in facilitating and strengthening community participation and ownership in development projects.

Partnerships with Donors

There has obviously been a change in the partnerships with donors. The main issue has been the shift of donor funding from CSOs for effective delivery clearly indicates, a need for donors to rethink the shifting of funding bit not in a static "either we fund government or CSO'S" manner. Partnerships offers the opportunity for the funding to be allocated holistically with support to the different partners recognising each partner's role as being equally important. The sector needs to engage with donors on funding sectors within an integrated development approach and crosscutting themes.

 

3. BUDGETING FOR THE BEIJING PFA IMPLEMENTATION

Review of the Beijing PFA implementation and government commitment is difficult without a budget set-aside for such a purpose. Yet, gender mainstreaming implies that it should not be necessary to set aside budget for promotion of gender equality. An innovative initiative is that of Women's Budget Initiative. This project analyses the departmental budgets for their gender responsiveness.

The government could state that its budget benefits women, especially access of women to health and education. Furthermore, there are specific budget allocations for the gender machineries. An analysis of the budget of R71m of the Presidency (Mail and Guardian November 5 to 11 '99) shows that the OSW is allocated only R2.7m compared to O.S.D.P with R3.3m and Youth Commission at R8.6m. The Child Rights component only R667 000,00. Depending on how much the R8.6m for he Youth Commission benefits the Girl Child, it could be concluded that R667 000,00 is adequate for promotion of gender equality at this level. The R2.7m is a mere 3.8% of the R71m.

The other gender machinery, CGE, was allocated RIO.6m by the Department of Justice in 1999 most of its resources are from donors. In the review of CEDAW implementation, the omission of a budget for its implementation was noted by the NGOs as well. No budget was allocated for the implementation of the Beijing PFA

The government could argue that besides the allocation to gender machineries, national and provincial department's budgets benefit women. However, it has been difficult to measure this as most of these did not have gender desegregated data nor information on the gender impact of their projects.

It is stated in the section on partnerships that less funding is going to NGOS, then it is clear that budgeting for promotion of gender equality is failing in between the cracks.

 

4. BACKGROUND

The first five years of the Beijing PFA has coincided with the first five years of democratic governance in SA. This was characterised largely by policy and legislative focus and the creation of the institutional and legislative framework within which effective governance and delivery could take place. Partnership were created with bilateral donors, UN agencies, international donor agencies and or NGOs. The SA Civil society played a critical role in developing some of the policies and legislation currently in place.

The second democratic election in June 1999 has confirmed the commitment of South Africans to the transformation of their country. Government has expressed focus on delivery over the next five years. The challenge is to test existing policies through implementation and delivery and to refine them as necessary.

The focus in the first five years was also for the government to commit itself to international frameworks, declarations and conventions. Indeed government has moved swiftly on this and continues to do so. The challenge in promotion of gender equality is how to mainstream these international commitments. The matrix below is an attempt to illustrate how a few of these, with particular relevance to the advancement of the position of the woman and girl child, can be used as a monitoring framework.