Beijing +25

The United Nations (UN) conferences have made a significant impact on the development agendas and related projects and programmes on gender equality designed to support women – including African women – starting with Mexico 1975, Copenhagen 1980, Nairobi 1985 and the fourth world conference in Beijing in 1995 with its Platform for Action (BPfA). The designation of the years 1975-1985 as the International Decade for Women was certainly a stimulus to this agenda; subsequent conferences successively mirror the growing activism and vitality of the international women's movement, in particular the growth and impact of Southern feminisms (which includes Africa) and their concerns around substantive equality issues (in addition to formal equality matters). The BPfA is the main agenda for African national and regional women’s organisations to hold their governments accountable on the promises made towards women. An interview with the Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka in this special issue confirms this.

No world conferences of women have taken place since 1995 because the UN focus shifted to implementation and report back. This shift also reflects a fear that alliances of conservative forces, which work against progress on women’s rights and gender equality – especially within the area of sexual and reproductive health and rights - may try to insert their agenda at a potential fifth world conference (Ferreee & Tripp 2006). Consequently, it could mean a set-back and withdrawing of already adopted gender language from the BPfA.

The twelve critical areas in the BPfA are: 1) Women and poverty, 2) Education and training of women, 3) Women and health, 4) Violence against women, 5) Women and armed conflict, 6) Women and the economy, 7) Women in power and decision making, 8) Institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women, 9) Human rights of women, 10) Women and the media, 11) Women and the environment, and 12) The girl child.

In 2020, we were celebrating the achievements of the past 25 years with the BPfA. Thus, it seems timely to assess how the global gender norms set out in BPfA have been translated into practice in African contexts with this Special Issue of Agenda. And more specifically if the BPfA has been useful for African women’s organisations to promote women’s rights and gender equality.

African contributions have played a significant role in the development of the global gender norms embedded in the BPfA although these contributions have often not been recognised. The Beijing conference became an arena for mobilisation of national and regional women’s organisations and regional meetings, for example, the Africa regional meeting in Dakar 1994 was instrumental for this mobilisation. Furthermore, the Beijing conference was chaired by an African woman, Gertrude Mongella from Tanzania, which created more interest among African women and synergies between Asian and African women (Manuh & Anyidoho 2015). However, the Beijing conference and BPfA have also been labelled a “laundry-list” of issues, drawing on discourses of “global sisterhood”, masking differences between women from the Global South and North (Amadiume 2000, p. 10). Amadiume further describes how it was easy for (some) from the Global North to leave Beijing with a vision of harmony and agreement between women from different parts of the world – especially with the focus on unity promoted by the African chair of the meeting. As such, it is debatable if the gender language adopted in itself is in fact useful for activism, or if the global narrative in the BPfA serves to mask the differences and power inequalities between women from the Global North and South.

Norm translation processes – global / local and vice versa

The perspective adopted in this Special Issue of Agenda on translation of global gender norms advocates for two different views on the nature of the processes of translation and the origins of the norms themselves. The first view acknowledges the role of norm entrepreneurs as norms do not occur in a vacuum and demands attention to agency and the framing of specific (gender) issues. From this perspective, norm translation is understood as a three-stage process where the first stage is ‘norm emergence’, the second stage a ‘norm cascade’ and the third stage ‘norm internalisation’. Between the second and third stage a ‘tipping point’ will occur with a critical mass acceptance and adoption of the global (gender) norms (Finnemore & Sikkink 1998). Although, there is an acknowledgement of the fact that not all global gender norms may reach the third stage and that new norms may emerge from the internalised norms, this perspective implies a somewhat fixed end and starting point. The third stage process indicates a unilinear and directional top-down translation of global gender norms from the global to local leaving little room for local variations and changes. However, as indicated translation processes may be iterative with norms not reaching all stages and new norm configurations. The literature on norm diffusion draws on similar thinking with a focus on gender norms travelling from the global level on a perceived unproblematic journey with local actors at the receiving end. However, local actors do not just ‘download’ global gender norms they also ‘upload’ (Engberg-Pedersen, Fejserskov & Cold-Ravnkilde 2020).

The second view with a focus on translation of global gender norms involves an acknowledgement of norms as much more multilevel, multidirectional and contested. Translation also implies a focus on processes from the local to the global, placing local agency and adaptation at the core of translation processes. Basu (2016) also emphasises the importance of agency of the Global South – Africa, in this issue – in translation processes of global norms. Although, her work focuses on Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security it also applies for the BPfA that “the Global South [Africa] is not a mere recipient of policies formulated elsewhere, but can claim ownership of WPS [BPfA] as well” (Basu 2016, p. 363).

With the presence of a high number of African participants and Gertrude Mongella leading in Beijing, this also holds true for the BPfA. Consequently, the different translations of BPfA from African contexts should be taken into account even though they tend to be marginalised (Basu 2016). As stated by Zwingel “there is always a trickle-up next to trickle-down processes” (Zwingel 2012, p. 122). In her work on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Zwingel (2005; 2016) argues that norm translations are complex processes with a focus on context and appropriation and norm contestation. She argues for a “contextualisation without relativisation” of global gender norms (Zwingel 2005, p. 416) and for the importance of “cultural affinity” between the norms and the local context to ensure the appropriation of global gender norms. In their work, Levitt and Merry also focus on norm translation processes which they label as “vernacularization” defined as processes when “women’s human rights ideas connect with a locality, they take on some of the ideological and social attributes of the place, but also retain some of their original formulation” (Levitt & Merry 2009, p. 448). Levitt and Merry emphasise processes of how global gender norms are “translated, redefined and adapted to new circumstances” (Levitt & Merry 2020, p. 146). They identify a ‘resonance dilemma’ stating that the more a global gender norm involves cultural affinity or compatibility the more likely it is to be adapted to the local context. However, as a result, they argue, it may not challenge existing local gender norms. The article by Océane Jason in this issue argues that “indigenous and grassroots knowledge, norms and practices ought to have greater visibility” (p. 139) and exemplifies South African gender projects. The outcome of translation processes may be a hybrid model of the global / local. Different versions can be an outcome of norm translation processes on a continuum from forced adherence or submission to exclusion of global gender norms – “compliance”, “adoption”, “adaption”, “co-option”, “resistance” and potentially also “rejection” (Björkdal & Höglund 2013, p. 297).

Critical perspectives on national gender machineries

The setting up of national machineries was called for already at the 1975 World Conference in Mexico, kicking off the International Women’s Year. During the World Decade for Women and the following two World Conferences (Copenhagen and Nairobi) the need for establishment of these institutional structures was repeated. During the Beijing Fourth World Conference, the focus was shifting towards ‘gender’ and ‘gender mainstreaming’ and the establishment of national gender machineries became one of the critical areas of concern with the specific focus “to support government wide mainstreaming of a gender equality perspective in all policy areas” (Rai 2007, p. 3). The national gender machineries are institutions created in the State to promote women’s interests. However, with the BPfA and the focus on gender mainstreaming they also became the “central policy coordinating units” (Rai 2007, p. 17) of governmental gender mainstreaming initiatives.

In their work Tripp et al. (2009) set up a table of the existing African national gender machineries. It illustrates that a number of African governments had established some form of national gender machinery already in the 1970s (e.g. Ghana and Rwanda in 1975) while several countries mentioned in this issue got national gender machineries later (Malawi 1984, Tanzania 1985, Ethiopia 1992 and South Africa 1997). In South Africa, a national gender machinery was part of the negotiated settlement due to women’s activism, with a package of structures in 1997. In some African countries, some were full ministries from the beginning while others have changed into ministries later. Tripp et al. state, “by 2006 the majority (thirty-six) in sub-Saharan Africa had gender ministries” (2009, p. 168).

Generally, these national machineries do not seem to be working very effectively to promote the interests of African women (Madsen 2010; Tripp et al. 2009; Tsikata 2000). The article by Nitasha Ramparsad on South Africa in this issue views the BPfA anniversary as a way to “reconnect, regenerate commitment, charge up political will and mobilise society” (p. 25). She mentions the weak national gender machinery as a barrier for gender mainstreaming and the need of a more holistic approach. Samantha Soyiyo states that Malawian gender machinery “has many shortfalls in terms of professional capacity” (p. 41). She especially mentions underfunding and staffing. The UN has itself tried to follow up on the role of national gender machineries with different case studies (Rai 2007). Rai (2007, p. 26) identifies five areas which are critical for the working of the national gender machineries respectively, location (at a high level), mandate and functional responsibility (clear and do-able), relations with women’s organisations, human and financial resources (in relation to mandate and functional responsibility) and accountability of the machinery itself (downwards as well as upwards). This is also demonstrated in the article on the national gender machinery in Malawi in this issue.

Third World Network-Africa has published a series of case studies on national machineries – Botswana (Dambe 2000), Ghana (Mensah-Kutin & others 2000), Tanzania (Meena 2000), Uganda (Wangusa 2000), Zambia (Chisala & Mpala 2000) and Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre Network [ZWRCN] 2000; Mama 2000; Ofei-Aboagye 2000; Tsikata 2000). Generally, the results point towards the national gender machineries not being able to implement their action plans and strategies despite some achievements within specific areas. They also point towards the ghettoization of women’s / gender issues, a lack of clout as the minister in charge is often “patronized” or regarded with “contempt or amusement” and the staff “not liking to be branded as feminists” (Mama 2000, p. 10) indicating a distance from the agenda itself. Samantha Soyiyo pinpoints that in the case of Malawi staff members of the national gender machinery did not have “values and beliefs in line with the operations of the department of gender” (p. 41) and were demotivated due to a lack of resources.

Nevertheless, even the ‘best practice’ case of an integrated set of structures in the African context in terms of national gender machineries – South Africa – has been dismantled (Gouws 2020). The national gender machinery was established in the wake of ending apartheid in 1997. It included an Office of the Status of Women in the Office of the President, a Joint Monitoring Committee on the Quality of Life and Status of Women (that monitored all State departments), a Women’s Empowerment Unit in the Office of the Speaker, a multi-party gender caucus in Parliament, gender desks in all civil service departments (on national and provincial level) and the autonomous Commission for Gender Equality, protected in the Constitution (Gouws 2006). However, one of the few structures left is the Commission for Gender Equality as some structures have been replaced with a single body, a Ministry for Women, Children and People with Disabilities from 2009 until 2017, and then replaced with a Ministry for Women, and again changed back to a Ministry for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities in the Presidency in 2019.

As such, it could be argued the global advocates for the establishment of these national gender machineries do not seem to have taken into account the local African contexts and how these national gender machineries may not be well suited for promoting the interests of so-called ‘ordinary African women’ in their present form.

Gender mainstreaming – more than “UNesque feminism”?

Gender mainstreaming is a strategy introduced in Nairobi 1985 at the Forward Looking Strategies conference and adopted by the 1995 Beijing conference with the BPfA aiming at introducing gender to the centre or mainstreaming of all policy making. Gender mainstreaming has been understood in three different ways – ‘the integrationist’, ‘the agenda-setting’ (Jahan 1995) and ‘the transformative’ (Squires 2005) approach. The ‘integrationist approach’ builds gender into the existing development agenda but with no transformation of the development agenda as a result. With this approach, the aim is to integrate gender issues into as many parts of the development agenda as possible. This approach seems to be inspired by the thinking of Women-In-Development (WID) with its focus on integration of women and / or gender. It can be debated if this approach qualifies as mainstreaming with its rather limited ambitions. The ‘agenda-setting’ approach implies a transformation of the development agenda with a gender perspective. The participation of women in the decision-making processes is seen as essential for bringing about a reorientation of the agenda. The Gender-And-Development (GAD) thinking with the focus on transforming gendered structures has led to this approach. The transformative approach to gender mainstreaming was developed by Squires (2005) based on her critique of the other models for respectively being limited to ‘selling out’ the women’s / gender agenda as a ‘business case’ or a job for technocrats (only) and ‘freezing’ identities with a one-sided focus on the participation of women. From her perspective, mainstreaming should be intersectional, including other perspectives such as race, ethnicity, sexuality, age, class and others and their multiple intersections.

Whereas the agenda-setting and the transformative approach seem to hold more promise for the future, the integrationist approach is the one which seems to be taken on board by development agencies and African governments. Gender mainstreaming has been labelled as “UNesque feminism” and reserved for “[T]hose (a comparative elite) who participated in the UN and other sites of transnational feminist politics” (Manicom 2001, p. 13). Manicom also emphasises how gender and gender mainstreaming have been associated with deploying different “technologies of gender” and “numbers of women and women’s units within formal government” taking the political edge off gender mainstreaming (Manicom 2001, p. 11). In her work, Arnfred (2003) has emphasised that the feminist agendas and visions for gender mainstreaming fundamentally differ from those of development agencies and African governments – instead of focusing on the transformative aspects of mainstreaming the latter tend to focus on “better quality and efficiency – from an economic point of view” (Arnfred 2003, p. 77). Similarly, Parpart (2014) highlights the focus on the technical nature of gender mainstreaming by development agencies (like UN) with the development of gender “tools” as quick fix solutions which can be ticked off in a box working against the knowledge that “gender transformation requires flexibility, patience and determination” (Parpart 2014, p. 392).

Madsen’s study (2010) illustrates how the women’s movement in Ghana initially embraced the notion of gender mainstreaming but has become more critical of the way gender mainstreaming has been translated into practice in the local context. According to the women’s movement gender mainstreaming has become an empty signifier in itself, leaving it open for multiple interpretations, detached from the focus on discrimination against women, which is what women’s organisations focus on (Madsen 2010). In addition, gender mainstreaming has meant a focus away from activities related to women (only) and a related redirection of resources towards ‘mainstreaming’ activities (Madsen 2010). Finally, the key mainstreaming initiative has been the establishment of gender focal points – a form of bureaucratisation – where only a handful were in a position to influence political decision making. The article by Silvia Cirillo on domestic workers in Ethiopia and Tanzania and their organisations also highlights that because of BPfA and the focus on gender mainstreaming “women’s organisations struggle to survive. Their actions have not been taken into consideration with the argument that – given the efforts of gender mainstreaming – their presence was no longer necessary” (p. 101). This despite the need for initiatives and solidarity in the absence of State protection.

Thus, the agenda of gender mainstreaming seems largely to be co-opted by development agencies and African governments in a version that may not lead to political and economic transformations for so-called ordinary African women. There is a need for African women’s organisations to reclaim gender mainstreaming as a political agenda addressing gender / power structures for it to become more than “UNesque feminism” – or perhaps rather diversity mainstreaming doing away with the generalised picture of women often adopted in mainstreaming efforts that is blind to intersectionality.

‘The Beijing women are coming’

Few studies have been published on how the BPfA has been adapted and (re)negotiated in different African local contexts. The present issue of Agenda contributes to filling this knowledge gap. Manuh and Anyidoho (2015) illustrate how the phrase “Beijing!” and “The Beijing women are coming!” in the aftermath of the 1995 conference have been (ab)used to label gender activists entering a room and “tinged with alarm of the possibilities of the collective will of women gathered behind the cause of women’s empowerment” (Manuh & Anyidoho 2015, p. 23). Similarly, Madsen (2019) accounts for how a high-ranking woman member of the political party structure in Ghana was labelled a ‘Beijing woman’ due to her focus on gender issues in the political sphere – a form of male bonding for some men against a common threat disguised in humorous terms. As stated by Rose Mensah-Kutin the head of the women’s organisation Abantu for Development:

It was actually post-Beijing that really raised the consciousness. But unfortunately, the consciousness was somehow negative, in the sense that people began to use it as a joke. I think to some extent, even though people began to realise that there were issues around women’s empowerment, unfortunately the whole issue of the conference and its outcome became one big joke for some men (in Manuh & Anyidoho 2015, p. 23).

Similar to the Ghanaian case, the Rwandan women’s organisations have used the Beijing conference and the BPfA to promote women’s rights and gender equality in post-conflict Rwanda, in more subtle and indirect ways.

Mageza-Barthel (2017) describes how the Rwandan delegation were actively influencing the global gender norms in the BPfA taking their domestic challenges to the global level, for example, violence against women. In this process “borrowing” from the international agenda also took place to ensure “domestication” of the global gender norms (Mageza-Barthel 2017, p. 83–84) – a form of two-ways translation process from the local to the global and vice versa. In the immediate post-genocide setting, it was not possible to refer to the UN and the gender language set out due to the failure of the UN to prevent the conflict. The examples from Ghana and Rwanda illustrate that the global gender norms set out in the BPfA within the thematic gender areas are important milestones for the women’s organisations that have actively adapted and (re)negotiated the global agenda in the local contexts. However, they also point towards the gap between adopting gender frameworks in global UN fora and the actual gendered realities in African contexts, pointing towards resistance and patriarchal gender norms and a lack of trust in the UN in some local contexts hampering the translation of the agenda into practice.

Monitoring of BPfA in Africa

Past issues of Agenda have reported back on the implementation of the Beijing Platform of Action, ‘Beyond Beijing’ (2005) (Beijing +10) and on the Nairobi Platform of Action (2006) (Nairobi +21). For women in Africa gender equality has remained elusive while gender-based violence (GBV) and poverty have increased. In the Nairobi +21 issue it was suggested that research and analysis need to be turned into action. There was a demand for greater pro-activeness around challenges, while women’s movements were praised for their understanding of these challenges. A need for greater transgenerational co-operation was expressed, as was the demand for radicalising feminist agendas that were diluted through gender mainstreaming that has undermined progressive agendas for social justice. A concern that “UN feminism” was co-opting radical voices was also mentioned (Wilson 2006). These same demands were made the previous year in 2005 with Beijing +10 when the generational issue was raised with the question “What does the next generation of women activists look like?” (Moolman 2005, p. 13).

The theme for Beijing +25 is “Women’s full and effective participation and decision-making in public life, as well as the elimination of violence, for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”. This is relevant and urgent if the 12 critical areas of the BPfA are to be implemented by 2030 and if the Sustainable Development Goals are to be reached.

For the celebration of Beijing +25, Eastern and Southern African Region (ESAR) countries have produced a Synthesis Report that is an integration of the report backs and analysis of country reports. It offers a snapshot of progress on the 12 critical areas of the BPfA. There is a reaffirmation of the commitment to international treaties that promote gender equality like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the African Union Maputo Protocol, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the African Union Agenda, 2063. Women’s empowerment and the reduction of poverty are two of the main issues singled out by most of the countries (Africa Women Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) 2020).

Some of the regional achievements include the following: By the end of 2019 seven East and Southern African countries developed National Action Plans (NAPs) for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, that for the first time singles out rape as an offense in war that should be covered by international law and demands the inclusion of women in post-conflict settlements. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is currently implementing its Regional Strategy on Women, Peace and Security (2018–2022), while the East African Community adopted the Regional Framework on UNSCR 1325 (2015–2019) for the mainstreaming of gender perspectives into the region’s peace and security initiatives and the protection of the rights of women. Women’s participation in politics and other decision-making positions has also been prioritised. Five countries in ESAR are now included in the 25 countries that are in the top regarding the number of women in legislative positions. Women in executives and judiciaries have also increased and more women are appointed to portfolios like defense, justice, economic planning, and trade and industry. The BPfA also puts the focus on the girl child. Progress has also been made to promote actions to secure the futures of girl children. Strategies have been adopted to criminalise child marriage, the introduction of free education, the provision of free sanitary pads or the exclusion of sanitary pads from taxation to keep girls in school (Africa Women CSOs 2020).

Recommendations of this report include the eradication of social norms and practices that are harmful, starting at the household level, poverty reduction, the strengthening and improved funding for national gender machineries and the improvement of civic and voter education, linked to the eradication of illiteracy.

African women also developed the African Women’s CSW65² Advocacy Position and Recommendations. This position document was developed following a virtual consultation with over 300 women’s and civil society organisations, feminists and advocates from more than 48 African countries and the diaspora that met on the 15th February 2021 to deliberate on the Africa CSOs’ position on the theme of the CSW65. FEMNET as a co-chair of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) CSW/Africa convened the drafting working group which included: Femmes Africa Solidarité (FAS), SERVITAS Cameroon, Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA), Gender Links, Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF), Women for A Change, Cameroon (Wfac), Zamara Foundation, KADIRAT, and Khafagy, Tha’era, Arab Women Network for Parity and Solidarity. The principles and values that are supported in this document are aligned with the Africa Feminist Charter.³

The “call to action” or the recommendations of this position paper include a focus on women in leadership, the eradication of GBV, as well as the prevention of the proliferation of small arms, women’s access to leadership positions and political participation, access to health care, access to education, women’s right to take decisions around the COVID-19 pandemic, access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the reduction and redistribution of unpaid carework (Africa Women CSOs 2021).

The Africa Feminist Charter was the outcome of the African Feminist Forum that took place from 15-19 November 2006 in Accra, Ghana, hosting over 100 feminist activists from Africa and the diaspora. Some of the aims were to promote African feminist movement building and the empowerment of women in academic spaces.⁴ The charter was to act as a feminist organising accountability mechanism. In the charter the women who signed it took on a clear ideological position by choosing to call themselves feminists. By doing this they politicise women’s struggles for rights and question the patriarchal structures that subjugate women, as well as developing tools for transformative analyses. The charter includes African feminists on the continent and in the diaspora, but the focus is on changing conditions for women in Africa (Charter of Principles n.d., p. 3).

Working from a feminist praxis the Charter makes the following claims regarding feminist organising:

Creating and sustaining feminist organisations to foster women’s leadership. Women’s organisations and networks should be led and managed by women. It is a contradiction of feminist leadership principles to have men leading, managing and being spokespersons for women’s organizations. Feminist organisations as models of good practice in the community of civil society organizations, ensuring that the financial and material resources mobilised in the name of African women are put to the service of African women and not diverted to serve personal interests. Systems and structures with appropriate Codes of Conduct to prevent corruption and fraud, and to manage disputes and complaints fairly, are the means of ensuring institutionalized (sic) within our organizations. Striving to inform our activism with theoretical analysis and to connect the practice of activism to our theoretical understanding of African feminism.

Being open to critically assessing our impact as feminist organisations, and being honest and proactive with regards to our role in the movement. Opposing the subversion and/or hijacking of autonomous feminist spaces to serve right wing, conservative agendas. Ensuring that feminist non-governmental or mass organisations are created in response to real needs expressed by women that need to be met, and not to serve selfish interests, and unaccountable income-generating (Charter of Principles n.d., p. 9).

Civil society organisations play an important role in holding governments accountable and they also act to flag serious problems of implementation. The African CSOs’ position statement on Beijing +25 indicates the following:

Noting, the 25 years review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA) is being conducted against the backdrop of an eroding pan-Africanism ideology; Africa’s high dependency on foreign aid to finance development projects; increasing illicit financial flows; extractivism; unprecedented poor land governance, rapid unplanned urbanization, propagation of xenophobia, misogyny and extremism under the guise of nationalism and protectionism; migration crisis; militarization; totalitarianism and centralization of political and economical powers in the ruling class; shrinking civic space, freedom of expression and association; weakening trade union; financialization of social services; armed and unarmed conflicts; increased levels and forms of violence against women, girls, children and minority groups, including technology-related violence and femicides; recurrent disasters and extreme weather and climate crisis.⁵

The position paper demands that African governments pay attention to the structural reform of African economies, women’s leadership, democracy and good governance, the impact of norms that erode gender equality and gender equality legal frameworks. They remind governments of the fact that progress toward gender equality was ensured by the work of feminist activists and civil society organisations and that women demand to be treated as equal partners on national, regional and global platforms.

South Africa and the BPfA

The South African government under the auspices of the Department for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities (DWYPD) used findings from disaggregated data and statistics to measure progress, consider trends and changes due to the implementation of the BPfA. Progress was measured against strategies and programmes in line with the National Development Plan, the Medium-Term Strategic Framework (2014-2019) and the Constitution. In December 2018 the President of the Republic of South Africa approved the establishment of a Presidential Review Committee on Women‘s Emancipation and Gender Equality to be championed by the Minister in the Presidency Responsible for Women. This report of the Review Committee informs the Beijing +25 CSW65 Report that was submitted to the UN.

In this report the top five priorities for accelerating progress for women and girls in the country through laws, policies and or programmes included (1) job creation and sustainable growth; improving access to education for girls especially in the Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) field; (2) addressing women‘s health in particular maternal mortality, the high levels of HIV and AIDS in young women; (3) addressing violence against women and gender-based violence, in particular issues of rape and sexual offences, femicide and intimate partner violence, killings and rape of lesbian and gay women and addressing trafficking in women and girls; (4) economic empowerment of women, in particular women-owned businesses, SMMEs, women cooperatives, women vendors, hawkers and village and township enterprises; (5) development of rural women.⁶ The report paints a rather positive picture of women’s empowerment and achievements in moving toward gender equality. The conclusion, however, acknowledges some of the very serious problems that those fighting for gender equality are facing:

However, a reflection on the past five years highlights that inadequate implementation of these legislation and policy frameworks have resulted in limited and uneven progress being made in some areas. A major challenge in realizing gender equality in South Africa lies in dismantling patriarchy and its effects; addressing and eliminating the high levels of violence against women and girls and high levels of gender-based violence and femicide; and in breaking the cycle of dependency of those women who continue to be marginalised and who remain vulnerable.

The nature of vulnerability that women face in 2019 is markedly different to the vulnerability women faced in 1994. It is therefore safe to say that the journey travelled for women’s emancipation, empowerment and gender equality in South Africa has been a promising, but difficult one. However it remains evident that when one compares the trends in progress over the years there is much to be proud of in the strides that have been made in realising the rights of women in South Africa (DWYPD 2019, p. 73).

The report makes the case that in the 25 years since 1994 South Africa has made great political, social and economic progress. There is, however, concern that the institutionalisation of the transformation agenda for women may have slowed down. Central to this concern are the continuing challenges and multiplicity of oppressions faced by South African women informed by their differently constructed subjective positions in relation to the political, economic, and social power structures. Although the agenda for gender equality and women‘s empowerment in South Africa is advanced in comparison with many other countries, efforts to achieve gender equality and women‘s empowerment through legislative and policy interventions have yet to substantially transform society and the economy.

One of the reasons for the difficulty of implementing a transformative / feminist gender agenda is related to the dysfunctionality of the South African National Gender Machinery (NGM), a set of structures that was once hailed as a global success story. The South African Women’s National Coalition (WNC) negotiated a set of integrated structures. Expectations of these structures were high and during the first parliament (1994-1999) they did deliver on their mandate due to the presence of feminists in the State. Yet, their successes diminished after 1999 due to under-resourcing, overlapping mandates and pernicious insider politics that led to dysfunctionality (Gouws 2006; 2020). By 2009 most were dismantled and replaced with a Ministry for Women, Children and People with Disabilities, enabling the ghettoizing of women’s issues – something that feminists have warned about when they rejected the idea of a ministry right from the start. The dysfunctionality of the NGM is also one of the reasons for the failure of the implementation of gender mainstreaming and legislation that will benefit women as the article by Marion Stevens on reproductive rights in this issue illustrates (see Gouws 2006, 2020)

A good way of corroborating the findings of the CSW65 Report is to compare it with the 2014 Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) review of South African government departments’ implementation of the BPfA. The BPfA could have been a platform for South African women to rally around and to mobilise for its implementation. Yet, public consultations by government before the report backs at the CSW have never been wide and deep, so that public knowledge of the BPfA is lacking. This is why civil society organisations, and specifically women’s organisations, write shadow reports that may be a truer reflection of the implementation of the BPfA. As an example of this type of shadow reporting we include a report on the consultative forum on Beijing +25 that was held by Ilitha Labantu, an NGO that provides services for women and children affected by violence. This consultative forum included younger women and foregrounded leadership by youth for realisation of gender equality and the Generation Equality initiative.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – linking BPfA with 2030

According to the CSW65 Report, South Africa was one of the early supporters of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. South Africa was instrumental in formulating the eight long-term development goals for the continent that became the seven objectives for the African Union’s Agenda for 2063. There is also a synthesis between the SDGs and South Africa’s National Development Plan: Vision 2030 (NDP). According to the CSW Report, 74% of the SDG targets are addressed in the NDP. The SDGs therefore have the potential to accelerate the realisation of the NDP (DWYPD 2019).

It is SDG goal number 5 that is of importance: “Achieve Gender Equality and Empower All Women”. There are 14 indicators to measure progress with this goal, such as eliminating violence against women, eradicating harmful practices, ensuring women’s participation in decision making, access to universal reproductive health, ending discriminatory practices and recognising unpaid care work.

Individual States are responsible for the implementation of goal 5, but Struckmann (2018) is of the opinion that the global nature of the SDGs works against implementation. Agenda 2030 is not challenging powerful countries, international financial institutions and transnational corporations that reproduce inequalities. The UN is also complicit in not calling member countries to account. Unlike the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), the SDGs are principally committed to respecting, protecting and promoting human rights and fundamental freedoms, and acknowledge the important links between inequality, marginalisation and poverty. Because the SDG framework has the eradication of poverty as a main concern, it lacks an integrated gender perspective and does not address the intersectional identities that locates women in relation to oppression and poverty (Struckmann 2018). An analysis of the SDGs shows that there is a lack of understanding that gender equality underlies the achievement of most of the other goals.

Struckmann (2018) also points out that the South African Development Plan views national development in a narrow technical, neo-liberal way that situates economic growth as the solution to problems of inequality. The NDP, similar to Agenda 2030, fails to recognise that economic liberalism contributes significantly to poverty given that it does not produce adequate levels of work, deliver essential services, or decrease inequalities. An analysis by the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) shows that the NDP is surprisingly gender blind and will need significant adjustment taking into consideration gender analyses (CGE 2014).

Taking stock

The articles in the Special Issue take stock of the implementation of the BPfA in different African countries and to what extent it has contributed to progress toward gender equality, linked to the different critical areas singled out in the BPfA. Most of the articles speak to a critical area of the BPfA. Not all the areas are covered but writers address the institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women, women and health, violence against women, women and the economy, education and training of women, and women and the media. The question of transnational feminism to keep the struggle for gender equality alive and holding governments accountable is also addressed. Writers also frame a meta-theoretical question whether gender equality created through the domestication of the BPfA contributes to the happiness of women. A number of the contributions in the special issue illustrate how the current COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the existing gender inequalities on the African continent and beyond, emphasising the need for careful monitoring and gender research within the area of global norm translation and BPfA in Africa.

Nitasha Ramparsad investigates the South African State’s ability to implement gender mainstreaming, giving effect to the BPfA’s critical area of enhancing institutional mechanisms (that are supposed to mainstream gender), as well as BPfA Resolution 1 and Action 205. She analyses the factors that enable and constrain implementation by using the South African government’s Department of Public Service and Administration as a case study through the implementation of the 8-Point Principle Plan. Central to her argument is the role of political will for implementation, something she found lacking in the case of the South African government, and specifically the Minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities. The failure of implementation is related to committing the necessary resources and monitoring implementation. Her article demonstrates that success of the domestication of international treaties are directly related to political will of politicians.

The role of the national gender machinery in Malawi (Ministry of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare) is analysed by Samantha Soyiyo. She shows that the national gender machinery does not work effectively to promote gender mainstreaming and gender equality for four reasons. First, inadequate financial resources with activities in this field being largely funded by donors and lack of guidelines for gender budgeting. Second, a lack of professional capacity related to understaffing, lack of gender awareness and rotational principles within the ministry. Third, changes of government as the development of a new gender policy had a time span over three different governments delaying the process, and finally bureaucracy and red tape relating to the work with the gender policy and a focus on meeting allowances for meetings outside the capital. The article concludes that the lack of an updated gender policy (finally adopted in 2015) hampered attention to emerging gender issues and the securing of funding. However, the prospect of international shaming and pressure from donors and NGOs ensured the adoption of a new policy.

Marion Stevens reflects on the past 25 years of the implementation of reproductive rights that is also a critical area of the BPfA (women and health). She notes how the new democratic government set about replacing the apartheid policy of population control after 1994. Despite progress, population control remains embedded in the programming for sexual and reproductive health and rights in South Africa. She pays attention to obstacles to the realisation of reproductive health rights such as the HIV epidemic, donor aid policies and “gag laws” implemented by conservative governments. Two related reproductive health indicators, contraception and abortion, are tracked to show how these have been framed, programmed, developed and, also changed over the past quarter of a century in South Africa. She aims to show how reproductive struggles are located in individuals, families and communities.

Tabitha Mulyampiti identifies the preconditions for the success story of a joint programme intervention in Uganda tackling violence against women drawing from the BPfA’s call for multiple actors to address gender inequality, at national and local levels. Drawing on the insights of feminist institutionalism, the article assesses how Uganda with a targeted multi-sectoral intervention managed to improve the situation in eight districts with a high level of violence against women. Key factors for the success are the setting of a coordination mechanism, ensuring the availability of services like shelters and awareness raising at the community level involving multiple actors including traditional authorities. The findings also point to the need for the inclusion of men reporting on violence and the forming of a ‘Men Action Group’. An integrated part of the intervention was careful monitoring. COVID-19 has further exacerbated the need for the intervention with the increasing numbers of gender-based violence incidents. Despite its success, the economic sustainability of the intervention is endangered as gender budget measures had not been established to secure its continuation despite the increased demand. The author calls for further local and national mobilisation of women’s organisations.

Bernadette Malunga reflects on the need for gender mainstreaming of the tax rulemaking process in Malawi based on qualitative data and perspectives of female cross border traders in Malawi (BPfA critical area, women and the economy). Inspired by civic republicanism with a focus on decentralised and inclusive processes of rulemaking, the author demonstrates how the current tax rulemaking processes favour male elites far removed from the realities of female cross border traders affected by these rules and whose livelihoods are at stake. The framing of tax rulings in gender-neutral terms further accentuates this development. The female traders are calling for rulemaking processes which are consensus-oriented, transparent and participatory, taking place in local venues and local languages and with representation of their interests in relevant formal fora.

The article by Danita Hingston also focuses on the BPfA critical area of women and the economy with the message that the national budget in South Africa should reflect care work in a formalisation of the care economy. The author pinpoints the dominant role of women in care work and the trade off with paid work showing gaps in social protection and public services. With three examples on the gendered perspectives of the child support care system, the health workers and public service delivery, the author illustrates how the deracialisation of social services has ensured black women’s rights to these social benefits and a role in the health sector, but within a dwindling budget frame. The COVID-19 pandemic stresses these trends with black women as shock absorbers.

Silvia Cirillo reflects on the position of domestic workers in Ethiopia and Tanzania, also in line with BPfA area women and the economy. Based on ethnographic fieldwork the article highlights how an integrated approach is needed based on women’s own strategies in and outside of the formal sphere as domestic workers are at the periphery of legal protection. Serving the middle and upper class (women) in Africa and the Middle East the domestic workers are exposed to low or no wages (especially the domestic workers fostered in cities based on family ties with relatives from the rural areas), long working hours, lack of education and sexual harassment. However, the article demonstrates how domestic workers are not just victims but exercise agency and engage in support networks initiated by NGOs to promote training on worker’s rights and ensure the voices of the domestic workers themselves are represented in the absence of formal institutional protection.

Zamambo Mkhize and Grace Idahosa focus on the critical area of access to education and equal participation by assessing black women doctoral students’ access to STEM disciplines, where black African women continue to be under-represented. Drawing on the research done with 19 black women doctoral students at two South African universities they show that women students report facing intersectional oppressions linked to their race, gender, and class – which negatively impact both their progression and retention. In the South African context, legacies of colonialism and apartheid continue to construct black women as outsiders in the academy. Apart from structural factors, socio-racial factors such as race and gender preferences and a gender division of labour contribute to attrition. The article shows how interlocking systems of oppression continue to influence the progression and retention of women in STEM disciplines, and speaks to the recommendation of the African Regional Synthesis Report: “Adopt, resource and implement measures to promote and support more girls to enroll and excel in STEM at primary, secondary and tertiary levels in both rural and urban schools” (Africa Women CSOs 2021, n.p.)

Glenda Daniels takes into consideration the BPfA’s strategic objectives to increase the participation and access of women to freedom of expression and decision making in and through the media and new technologies of communication that will challenge sexism and sexist stereotypes. She draws on data from a collaborative research project, Glass Ceilings: women in South African media houses, 2018, conducted with Gender Links and the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF). In an analysis of 10,000 responses to a survey which asked: is gender discrimination a problem in the newsroom?, the article shows that women reported experiencing an increase in sexism and sexist stereotyping in the South African media. Cybermisogyny is rife and women journalists have little protection, leading to the silencing of women in media. She calls for States and ICT providers to be held accountable in order to give effect to the strategic objectives of the BPfA.

Océane Jasor assesses women’s activism that is important to create the bridge between international treaties, women’s movements and the State, with a focus on the importance of transnational feminist activism. She points out the downside of gender mainstreaming that defuses the power of a radical discourse of gender justice. She is concerned about how global discourses are translated at the local level through feminist activism. Drawing on the findings from ethnographic research between 2015 and 2020 with women’s and feminist organisations, such as the Centre for Communication Impact (CCI), Agisanang Domestic Abuse Prevention and Training (ADAPT) and Sonke Gender Justice, she explores feminist activism on a grassroots level. She also reports on the participatory action research with #ForBlackGirlsOnly, a young feminist movement in South Africa. She argues that the gender mainstreaming of the BPfA’s framework and the subsequent homogenisation of gender-based praxis may hamper local strategies and aspirations for gender justice in the South African context. Local activism could be strengthened through transnational activism that is sensitive to local contexts. She makes a case for a kind of transnational feminist activism that does not efface the multiplicity of traditions, experiences, and subjectivities that inform gender-based struggles and that is transformative.

Carmine Rustin and Maria Florence consider the meta-theoretical question of whether efforts to create gender equality through the domestication of the BPfA, domestic legislation and other efforts have improved the subjective well-being or happiness of women. Drawing on quantitative data from the World Value Survey they show that there is a complex relationship between gender, race, class and happiness. Another key finding shows that women value gender equality as an essential feature of democracy. The article illustrates the complex nature of attitudes that inform women’s well-being. Gender equality is related to issues of recognition and redistribution on a material level. The authors make the suggestion that the implementation of gender equality measures need to improve women’s happiness in order to be successful on an emotional level.

It is our hope that this special issue of Agenda will provide a basis for increased mobilisation to promote the critical gender areas laid out in the BPfA based on knowledge. Although, the marking of anniversaries such as the BPfA +25 are important and (re)establish engagement and visibility the ‘in-between’ is where the actual work and struggles take place.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amanda Gouws

AMANDA GOUWS is Professor of Political Science at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. She holds a PhD from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in the USA. Her research focuses on women and citizenship, the National Gender Machinery, women’s representation and women’s movements and she has published widely in these areas. She is the editor of (Un)Thinking Citizenship: Feminist Debates in Contemporary South Africa (UK: Ashgate and Cape Town: Juta, 2005). Her edited book with Daiva Stasiulis, from Carleton University, Gender and Multiculturalism: North/South Perspectives appeared with Routledge Press in 2014. Her edited volume Feminist Institutionalism in South Africa: Designing for Gender Equality is forthcoming with Rowman and Littlefield. She was a Commissioner for the South African Commission for Gender Equality from 2012-2014. She is currently a Distinguished Professor, holding a National Research Foundation (NRF) Research Chair in Gender Politics. Email: [email protected]

Diana Højlund Madsen

DIANA HØJLUND MADSEN is Senior Gender Researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden. She is also a Research Fellow at the University of Bloemfontein, Free State, South Africa. Her research focus is on gender and politics, gender and conflict and gender mainstreaming with a specific focus on Ghana and Rwanda. Some of her most recent publications are: ‘Gendered Institutions and Women’s Political Representation in Africa’, Africa Now series with ZED Books / Bloomsbury, ‘Temporality and the Discursive Dynamics of the Rwandan National Action Plans on Women, Peace and Security from 2009 and 2018’, International Feminist Journal of Politics (with Heidi Hudson), ‘Friction or Flow? The Translation of Resolution 1325 into Practice in Rwanda’, Conflict, Gender, and Security, ‘Gender, Politics and Transformation in Ghana: The Role of Critical Actors’, Nova Science Publishers. Email: [email protected]

Notes

2 The Commission on Status of Women (CSW) is mandated to take a leading role in monitoring and reviewing progress and problems in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. CSW65 refers to the current session where representatives of UN Member States, civil society organisations and UN entities planned to gather at UN headquarters in New York, but the meeting was shortened due to COVID-19 and rescheduled to 2021. See: https://www.unwomen.org/en/csw (accessed 6 May 2021).

3 View at: https://femnet.org/2021/03/african-womens-csw65-advocacy-position-and-recommendations/ (accessed 31 March 2021).

4 View at: https://awdf.org/the-african-feminist-charter/ (accessed 6 April 2021).

5 View at: https://femnet.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Africa-CSO-Position-Statement-on-Beijing25.pdf] (accessed 8 April 2021).

6 View at: http://www.women.gov.za/images/Final-National-Beijing-25-Report-2014-2019–Abrideged-.pdf (accessed 6 April 2021).