Empowerment must translate to inclusion in economy, report-back session on Women’s Charter told

A report-back session on the Women’s Charter has called for gender commitments to be translated into fiscal commitments across all spheres of government.

Deputy chairperson of the National Council of Provinces Sylvia Lucas said all departments across the three spheres of government should be subjected to annual gender audits to assist in the institutionalisation of gender mainstreaming.

“Collectively, we must advance for an inclusive economic growth paradigm, inculcating a gendered imperative into all economic growth policy frameworks and strategic interventions,” she said.

Lucas was speaking at a Women’s Charter for Accelerated Development report-back session in KwaZulu-Natal. .

The session was a product of a women’s parliament resolution to undertake an extensive review of the 1994 Women’s Charter for Effective Equality to assess the efficacy of existing systematic and institutional mechanisms across the spheres of government in advancing gender equality.

“During the review process, the women of South Africa demanded we establish clear roles, responsibilities, mandates and lines of accountability of key government and oversight bodies in implementing gender mainstreaming initiatives,” Lucas said.

She added the women called for the women’s parliament to be resolute in its commitments.

“To re-engineer systematic an institutional arrangements across the three spheres of government and to improve women’s quality of life, we must ensure we advance policy redesign, planning, budgeting and implementation practices to advance gender transformation.”

Lucas said gender equality is a fundamental human right and an essential prerequisite for achieving a gender-equitable society.

“Legislative change must be accompanied not only by policy measures that promote this constitutional principle, but they should result in the implementation of gender equity across all sectors of society and our starting point is to extensively review the Amendment of the National Gender Policy Framework as proposed by the Commission for Gender Equality,” she said. 

Lucas also called out the inability of the state to implement its ideas, saying it is a “key decelerator to policy implementation and impedes substantive transformation”.                 

“A capable state requires effective co-ordinated state institutions with skilled public servants, who are committed to the public good and capable of delivering consistently, high-quality services, while prioritising the people in the achievement of the nation’s developmental objectives.

“We demand that all spheres of government address structural and institutional weaknesses that impede gender transformation.”

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