Chapter 3:
CHALLENGES FOR THE NATIONAL GENDER MACHINERY
Capacity Building and Resource Allocation
- South Africa’s national machinery faces a lot of challenges. Firstly,
the OSW and CGE were only established three years after the 1994 elections.
Some departments established gender units before this, but these units
do not have the backup of the central bodies. Even after 1997, the OSW focused
on
the national gender policy and provincial OSWs rather than the departmental
Gender Focal Points.
- The power and capacity of the OSW at national and
provincial level is limited.
For example, it is not automatically involved in the drafting of national
policy and has a very limited staff establishment responsible for driving
most of
the programmes.
- Many departments only look at gender equality issues in
terms of their personnel and internal workings, without aligning is it with
the broader
strategic gender
issues.
- The national machinery has limited funds. With regard to OSW there
is no uniformity on the budget and human resource allocation issues. Some
departments
make budget allocations for gender work. On the whole it is inadequate
and is not linked to any clear plan and programme. With regards to the
majority
of gender work within government, it would seem that it is financed through
bilateral aid from foreign governments and aid agencies.
- In terms of staff
establishment, the trend is to have an individual serving as a gender focal
point rather than a unit. Usually GFP staff are also
responsible for a range of other tasks within government departments. Many
are human
resource officers responsible for gender equity (among other equity measures)
and have
little expertise in gender mainstreaming or gender analysis.
- With regard
to the CGE, government provides minimal funding which basically covers salaries.
A large part of programme work is raised from donors.
The CGE has a fair staff complement but has seen a high turnover in the
past
six years. Lack of stability in staffing has impacted on effectiveness.
- Some of the people holding positions in the gender machinery do not understand
gender issues well, although they know a lot about politics and sectoral
issues. A number of women’s and gender studies courses have begun
to offer training for women and men in these positions. The South African
Management
and Development
Institute is the official training institutions for public servants, but
it does not deal with gender in its courses.
- The policy and political commitment
have not been adequately extended to resource allocation for implementation.
In many instances the effective
implementation
of the respective laws has been hampered by the inadequate resource allocations.
For example, parliamentary hearings on the implementation of the Choice
on Termination of Pregnancy Act shows that, in many instances, quality
care
provision is hampered by factors such as downscaling of funds to the
public health sector
provision.
Reaching Out to Rural Women
- Reaching out to rural women remains a huge challenge for the government
and the NGM. New strategies need to be developed which will enhance access
to
rural women.
Intersectoral collaboration/coordination
- Intersectoral coordination and collaboration still remains a major challenge
for the NGM.
CONCLUSION
It is clear that despite all the constraints, the post-apartheid South African
state has made many strides to contribute towards overall gender transformation.
The extent to which its policy commitment has translated into real empowerment
of poor people, and in particular women at grassroots level, has been a contested
issue, raised strongly by women’s rights activists, over the first seven
years of the democratic government. It therefore remains to be seen how the
gains made in last ten years will be consolidated in the next ten years.
Overall, we are cognisant of the fact that while women of this country have
made these tremendous gains within a short space of time, but a lot still needs
to be done to relatively transform the situation, substantially.