Review 3 final 2 - TAU - National Treasury

More documents

Recommendations

Info

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE UNIT REVIEW | Gender mainstreaming in governance • The processing of asylum applications remains highly problematic. • Government should play a greater role in promoting social cohesion and integration. • Women are economically impoverished and deprived of or denied access to their rights, particularly in the rural areas. From these issues raised, a programme of action (POA) was recommended to South Africa and the following have been attended to since then (African Peer Review Mechanism 2010: 349-350): • South Africa has ratified the Southern African Development Community Protocol on the Facilitation of the Movement of Persons, which regulates migration within the Southern African region. • Programmes aimed at alleviating poverty, which include the social security assistance programme, have been outlined. • The government has increased the percentage of no-fee schools to provide access to education to a higher number of children. The national school nutrition programme is to be extended to cover secondary as well as primary schools in 2009. • The government has engaged in programmes to support children affected by HIV and AIDS. These include providing support and food parcels for child-headed households, and providing voluntary counselling and testing services. (There is no mention of access to preventative medication such as anti-retroviral therapy.) • The government continues to face logistical difficulties in making access to water, sanitation and electricity universal. • A women’s fund to build capacity and empower women has been established. • The government has responded to the xenophobic violence that broke out between citizens and foreign non-national communities in largely impoverished areas by appointing a parliamentary task team to discover the root causes. (However, there is no mention of the government’s adopting measures to prevent further xenophobic attacks, although the CRR recommended it do so.) • The government has acknowledged the occurrence of racially-based attacks, and launched a Constitutional Education Programme intended to raise public awareness of rights, and in particular the right of access to justice for vulnerable groups, including migrants. (The report does not indicate what government has done to address failures in racial integration.) • A higher proportion of the government’s budget has been allocated to curbing crime. • The government has recognised a need to strengthen its anti-corruption mechanisms. • The government has adopted a national strategic plan that proposes a holistic look at the HIV and AIDS pandemic by seeking to reduce (1) the number of new HIV infections and (2) the impact on the individual, families and communities. Larger budget allocations have been made to cover additional needs like improved nutrition and health systems. The broader African community and gender mainstreaming The SADC region recognises, through various protocols and activities that unequal gender relations need to be addressed in governance. The SADC protocol on gender is a triumph of forty-two women’s rights organisations from across the region that demanded that the 1997 SADC Declaration on Gender and Development be elevated to a protocol, and in its twenty-three targets, issues of governance are embedded (Morna 2008: 10). 28 page Enabling change for development
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE UNIT REVIEW | Gender mainstreaming in governance Conclusion Theory and current practice points strongly to a new way of governance and in particular recognition of a more networked society and therefore policy making and governance that is typical of a network society. The developmental trajectory of the various regions and countries will influence the level of networks to form and be sustained in those particular societies. As such, different countries and regions with different development paths and results will have distinct types of networks with varying influences on public policy conversations. As Africa and SADC in particular make particular choices of the type of governments it wants, influences of such choices falls into the South African nation state as our choices also influence them. Below are some suggestions for bettering South African governance based on the arguments posed above. The following is recommended: • More use of deliberative policy analysis as a means of understanding governance in the new network society. • Policy communities are becoming more and more conflictual, and therefore more in - depth analysis of their reasons for conflict and tension is required. • Social exclusion of vulnerable groups such as women and children has a large influence on their ability to govern through their networks. Therefore it is imperative that governments also assist these vulnerable groups in accessing discursive policy arenas and be better networked. • More work must be done by the South African and indeed other African governments in dealing with issues like women’s education, women’s health, promotion of positive perceptions of women; gender sensitive data collection techniques and processes; economic self-determination of women; valuing of women’s work; placement of women in decision making positions; educating women regarding their legal rights and other laws pertinent to them and gender budgeting; in order for women to be better able to participate in deliberative policy processes effectively. • African Peer Review Mechanism recommendations need to be further implemented. • Public Service Commission recommendations need to be further implemented. Charmaine Williamson Technical Advisor References: African National Congress (2007) ANC 52 nd National Conference 2007 Resolutions. ANC. Pg 16 and 33. Morna. C. (2008) SADC Women soar to new heights with Gender Protocol, in Gender Media and Diversity Journal, Issue 5. Pg 10. Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (2010) The African Peer Review Mechanism: A compilation of studies of the process in nine African countries. Open Society Foundation. Republic of South Africa: Public Service Commission. (2009): State of the Public Service Report. Quan-Baffour K.P (2008) Gender mainstreaming: A new paradigm for sustainable environmental management in Ghana. Africanus: Journal of Development Studies, 38 (1) Pg 57-62 Republic of South Africa (RSA) Gender Mainstreaming initiatives in the Public Service. November 2006. Public Service Commission. Pretoria. Government Printer. Pg 70- 76. Todes .A, Sithole .P and Williams .A (2007) Local government, gender and integrated development planning. Human Sciences Research Council Press. Pretoria: Pg 9-33. Wood Wetzel, J (1996) On the road to Beijing: the evolution of the international women’s movement. Afflia: Journal of Women and Social Work, 11 (22) Pg 221-236. page 29 Enabling change for development
Page 1 and 2: TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE UNIT REVIEW Vo
Page 3 and 4: TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE UNIT REVIEW |
Page 27: TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE UNIT REVIEW |
Page 49 and 50: Tini Laubscher Tini Laubscher is a
Page 51 and 52: TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE UNIT REVIEW NO

Review 3 final 2 - TAU - National Treasury

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?