Gender Justice Synopsis 
The GL Gender Justice programme comprises of two programmes, the GBV Indicators Research Programme and coordinating a regional Sixteen Days of Activism campaign. Both programme use the 365 National Action Plans (NAP) to End Gender Based Violence as reference point.

Inspired by the SADC Protocol’s target of halving levels of GBV by 2015 and the lack of baseline measures  of GBV, GL in partnership with local stakeholders has conducted baseline studies using the GBV indicators in the South African Provinces of Gauteng, Western Cape and Kwazulu Natal, Botswana and Mauritius. GL conducted the Gauteng and Mauritius studies from 2010 to 2011 and the Western Cape, Kwazulu Natal and Botswana studies in 2011.

The results of the baseline studies are used to strengthen the NAPs.

The Sixteen Days of Activism campaign provides an important checkpoint every year to measure the country’s progress in implementing their NAPs and identifying key priorities for the next year. The campaign is also a time to advocate and lobby for increased activity, budgets and political to address the high levels of GBV.

This section of the report will present key activities from the GBV Indicators and Sixteen Days of Activism campaign.

Objectives
•	To provide baseline information on the extent, effect, response, support and prevention of GBV.
•	To lobby Government’s and civil society to strengthen NAPs based on the findings of the GBV Indicators studies where available.
•	To embark on advocacy campaigns such as the Sixteen Days of Activism to create awareness and hold key stakeholders accountable for strategies and action to end GBV.

Background 
GL with support from UN Trust Fund convened a meeting to assess the progress made in implementing the National Action Plans to End Gender Based Violence (GBV) in the SADC region from the 16-17 February 2011. The meeting brought together representatives from relevant gender ministries and NGOs from the gender violence sectors from 14 SADC countries including Angola, Botswana, the DRC, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The meeting began with a discussion of the global context.

At the global level, the UN has taken and called for all countries to develop National Action Plans to End Gender Based Violence. In 2006, the UN Secretary General called on all member states to adopt and implement multi- sector action plans to address violence against women. In 2008 the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched the UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign which reiterates the need for a multi-sector approach to ending gender based violence. The campaign is a multi-year effort aimed at preventing and eliminating violence against women and girls in all parts of the world.

The May 2010 Southern Africa and Indian Oceans Islands regional launch of the UNiTE campaign and the Gender Based Violence chapter of the SADC Gender Protocol 2010 Progress Barometer show that all fifteen SADC countries have developed some form of action plan to end gender based violence. Gender Links has provided technical assistance in at least ten of these.

There is only four years to go before the 2015 deadline to meet extensive GBV targets in the SADC Gender Protocol including the target to reduce current levels of GBV by 50%. There is however no baseline data to measure whether this will be achieved in most Southern countries.

Many SADC countries have some form of plan to end GBV. There is a need to critically review the implementation of these Action Plans, with a particular emphasis on the role of the governments’ gender machinery in implementation and gain an understanding of support required from different stakeholders to meet the targets set out. SADC states are currently at different levels of implementing National Action Plans to address GBV. Countries may be divided into five categories: 
•	No plan: no evidence of a coordinated multi-sectoral NAP to end GBV
•	Draft plan: a NAP exists but has not been adopted by a relevant government or government department.
•	Adopted: NAP has been adopted and launched but a relevant line department within government has not put in place a coordinated implementation strategy with a budget.
•	Substantial progress on implementation: the NAP is housed and coordinated by a line Department that has implemented most of the activities in the plan.
•	Fully costed and budgeted plans: governments have costed the plan, attached a budget and will be implementing the plan.

Activities and inputs 

GBV Indicators research

GL uses a combination of research methodologies to test a comprehensive set of indicators and establish a baseline of GBV in each of the studied areas. The project components are:
•	Prevalence and attitudes household survey; 
•	Analysis of administrative data gathered from the criminal justice system (police, courts), health services, and government-run shelter;
•	Qualitative research of men’s experiences of intimate partner violence as well as first-hand accounts of women’s and men’s experiences, or ‘I” Stories.  
•	Media monitoring.
•	Political discourse analysis. 

The research uses the different tools to inter-relate and triangulate findings to answer the key questions relating to extent, effect, response, support, and prevention. The flagship tool is the prevalence/ attitude study, justified on the basis that statistics obtained from administrative data do not cover many forms of gender violence, and even those that are covered are under-reported. However, the “I” stories, or lived experiences, give a human face to all aspects of the research. The administrative data, media monitoring and political content analysis provide key insights in relevant areas. 

2011 Sixteen days of Activism

Local government COEs

The primary focus of the 2011 Sixteen Days of Activism Campaign was to ensure that campaigns were extended beyond urban centres to reach communities in the often more remote areas of the region. This was carried out through supporting local councils that have been a part of GL’s centres of excellence (COE) process to undertake Sixteen Days Campaigns. The aim was to include communities within various localities to participate in campaigns. The approach relied upon local councils and communities to plan and facilitate the Sixteen Days campaigns whereas the normal approach is to undertake campaigns on behalf of the localities. 

Activities included:
•	Two day planning meetings to develop comprehensive and specific Sixteen Days action plans and calendars in 23 councils. 
•	Identifying ten local sources (including survivors) on GBV willing to be interviewed in 7 countries. 
•	Collating GBV sources into directory of sources - for use by journalists across the region.
•	16 IT for advocacy training workshops to enable 317 members of localities to set up email accounts and enable them to participate in cyber dialogues.
•	Documenting personal accounts of GBV survivors in 23 councils.  109 stories documented were on a range of subjects related to GBV. 
•	23 Face-to-face discussions on a variety of topics including gender and climate justice.
•	Setting up 27 cyber hubs to link in to regional cyber dialogues linking to other councils in the region discussing a range of topics. 
•	Six citizen action initiatives (marches) for awareness raising and safer spaces in communities – Take back the night march. 

Training journalists from the media COEs on covering GBV
A complimentary focus was to enable journalists and media students to firstly, effectively and creatively cover GBV stories and secondly, to partner with communities and local councils to publicise 16 Days campaigns. Actions to promote local actions to end gender based violence were carried out in 23 councils in 9 countries that were part of the COE process in Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Media training was also undertaken in Tanzania. 

The purpose of work with the media was to expand and improve the coverage of GBV. In the 2010 Gender and Media Progress Study (GMPS) GL found that only 4% of media coverage in a month of monitoring was on GBV out of a sample of over 30,000 news items from 14 countries. Only 27% of the sources in these stories were women. Men spoke more on all aspects of GBV including rape (75%) and domestic violence (76%).

Activities included:
•	Three day training workshops with journalists on gender sensitive coverage of GBV in 7 countries. 156 journalists trained. 
•	Gathering GBV stories in 7 countries and 14 localities.
•	Visits to local councils during Sixteen Days to collect stories. 50 Stories collected. 


Gender and Climate Justice campaign
During the 2011 Sixteen days period Southern Africa was host to the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This event held in Durban, South Africa raised issues of justice and human security to the fore at a time when the globe and moreover Africa continues to grapple with critical developmental challenges such as environmental security, sustainable development and climate change. The effects of climate change on vulnerable people such as women and children demonstrate that this phenomenon is clearly a gender justice concern. 

The two major global campaigns on key justice and development issues came together in late November/ early December 2011. The Sixteen Days of Activism from 25 November to 10 December coincided with the UN Conference on Climate Change in Durban. This gave rise to a dual focus on gender and climate justice in 2011. In addition to localising GBV campaigns, the momentum of the two campaigns was used to launch a concerted campaign for an addendum to the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development on gender and climate change. Though COP17 has come and gone, issues of climate change continue to be addressed through their inclusion in both the local government and media COE process.

Activities included:
•	Daily Links - a daily E Newsletter disseminated each morning through GL’s and the African Women and Child’s Feature Service (AWC) list serves from 28 November to 9 December on Gender and Climate Justice.
•	Main stories housed in the GL Opinion and Commentary Service and the AWC news service and disseminated to:
•	GL’s list serve of 11,000 people and the AWC list serve of media outlets in East Africa.
•	GL and AWC websites.
•	Stories accessible through Facebook and Twitter.
•	Distributed to mainstream media – about 100 outlets - in Southern and East Africa for use in newspapers and radio stations.
•	17 cyber dialogues that began with half hour link each day to the Durban conference, followed by the main theme for the day. 
•	Lobbying and advocating for Addendum to the SADC Gender Protocol on climate change. 
				

Targets 
The envisaged primary beneficiaries of the project are all women and girls. Engaging men in campaigns to end GBV is an important component of the prevention campaign s for GBV. 

Cross cutting issues 
Contracting HIV and AIDS is a known effect GBV. This study explores the link between GBV and HIV and AIDS in the studied areas. The findings from South Africa and Botswana show that GBV is a significant precursor to HIV/AIDS. These correlations were difficult to assess in Mauritius where the majority of participants did not know their HIV status because they had never tested for HIV.

This project does not directly address climate and environmental issues. However climate change poses potential challenges to women residing in rural communities.  These challenges include compromises in food security and in income generation. The limit to women’s ability to conduct income generating, small and medium enterprise or co-operatives makes them liable to more economic dependence on their partners who may have alternative forms of income. This economic dependence may further expose them to intimate partner violence and limit the options of leaving abusive relationships by the women. However climate change may also be providing opportunities for women to be venturing into new areas of income generation. Projects have been set up ranging from recycling to propagation of drought resistant seed. These offer opportunities previously unknown to women with the promise of reducing their liability to economic dependency and subsequent abuse.

Challenges 
A key challenge of this project is that it is a partnership project with a heavy reliance on political buy in for implementation. The scale and nature of the project requires GL to work with credible partners in each country. This is crucial to ensure that the findings are representative of the context. Political buy-in from inception is also critical for ownership of results advocacy and taking forward the recommendations.

The GL partnerships have proven strategic in that they enhance local ownership of the project and pave way for the use of the research findings to inform local policy frameworks and interventions. For example in Botswana, the study is primarily identified as a government study as illustrated in the following excerpt  from the Minister of Labour and Home Affairs’ speech at the launch of the research report;

“With support from the UN System, my Ministry, in collaboration with Statistics Botswana and Gender Links, a regional NGO, has taken the initiative to conduct this much needed research to establish the prevalence of and attitudes on violence against women and girls.”

GL has also used the partnerships to leverage on financial and human resources for the project’s implementation. For example the Women’s Affairs Department allocated funds to the tune of about 1.1million Pula for the survey logistical and human resources costs as well as the public launch of the research report. In Gauteng, SALGA Gauteng hosted and covered the full costs of the event.

Outputs 
-Quality data on women’s experience and men’s perpetration of GBV through survey.
Data on use of services by survivors
First-hand accounts of GBV experience.
Media case studies of GBV coverage.
Political speeches
-Research reports, pamphlets and commentary pieces
-Launch events, presentations of findings in study sites
-23 planning workshops with 317 people participating
-317 people trained on IT for advocacy
-109 first hand accounts
-27 cyber hubs set up

Reasons for failing to achieve anticipated outputs in this programme area
1.	Project inception is dependent on stakeholder consultation processes to obtain political buy in. This has often delayed implementation.
2.	Access to administrative data requires GL to request and then wait until mostly more senior officers give clearance. This has been a challenge and has delayed the implementation of the administrative data component and affected the project as a whole.
3.	The collection of first-hand accounts of violence requires GL to partner with support organisations. The turnover time for signing of MOUs by the partners has posed delays. Another challenge is the access to a critical mass of survivors who are willing to tell their stories.
4.	Human resources capacity has posed an impediment to progress. Project manager is contributing most of the content work in addition to the managerial tasks. The Mauritius report is still outstanding because the process of findings validation is now dependant on the availability of the Prime Minister.

Adjusting milestones 
The target to complete KZN and Western Cape Reports will have to be moved into the 2012-2013 work plan because GL still awaits the administrative data from the two provinces and an organisation to partner with in the collection of I stories in Kwazulu Natal. The remaining time in this year will be dedicated to finalising and validating the Mauritius report.

Outreach
How do you ensure a cascading effect in your work through; please give examples 
GL uses different platforms to ensure a cascading effect in this work including the media, social networks, the GL website and strategic distribution of publications.

For each new publication, the editor sends press releases and opinion pieces based on the results through the GL list-serve. The media pick and use the commentaries. For example the SABC news, Daily News,  News 24, Rutgers and ICTJ News republished the commentary piece entitled “police statistics still fall short” which recommends the use of survey methods for collecting GBV data as opposed to relying on police data.

Women 24, SABC News, Iq4 News and Cape Times republished the commentary piece entitled “Police statistics still do not include domestic violence” which  called for the South African police to honour their commitment  to include domestic violence statistics in the annual crime reports following the recommendations of the Gauteng study.
 All Africa, Mopane Tree, Silo Breaker, Africa Focus, I4u & African news wire republished the commentary titled “State of Emergency call to end violence against women” which calls for action to address the high prevalence of GBV shown by the Botswana study.
GL is using social networks for example the Enough is Enough Facebook page which was created following the outcomes of the Gauteng research. The page is a campaign initiative aimed to promote activism against GBV. To date more than 11,000 people ‘like’ this pa ge. 

For each new publication, the web administrator puts up an e-announcement on the website. The Botswana and Gauteng reports are available on the GL website.

Project staff compiles the results from each study site into reader friendly research reports. GL launches the event at well publicised events attended by relevant stakeholders. GL also strategically distributes the publications to national and regional stakeholders.

Outcomes – results 
•	Buy in by the Botswana, South African and Mauritius government.
•	Indicators built into national action plans in Botswana, Mauritius and SA
-Indicators project cascaded to other SADC countries. ;