Governance & Accountability

This review of the State of the Nation Address (SONA) for 2013, as delivered by President Jacob Zuma in parliament on 14 February 2013, gauges how government’s priorities for the year will affect the social, political and economic status of women. It also measures the advances made with regards to the five priorities the president set in the 2009 SONA, namely: Decent work, education, crime, health and rural development and agrarian reform.

In South Africa, a woman is raped every 26 seconds. The Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre together with the Heinrich Böll Foundation have unveiled a mural in Johannesburg to highlight the need for the state and communities to improve their response to violence against women.

On the 15th of September 2012, more than 30 Lavender Hill community members and representatives of local organizations attended a townhall meeting to discuss issues of how to enhance state and community responses to gender based violence.

On the 1st of June 2012 the Heinrich Böll Foundation in partnership with Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre held a dialogue to provide a space for engagement among non-profit organizations, social movements and trade unions in order to identify common concerns and positions in relation to gender based violence.

While xenophobia may seem far removed from racial tensions, poverty, and public protest, how we understand and address these concerns is inseparable from the bias and violence against outsiders. At the root of these tensions is a discourse of citizenship and transformation that insists – often implicitly – on the categorization of people into a relatively homogenous, entitled majority and those for whom, by virtue of their experience, origins, or occupation, political recognition comes only by demonstrating their utility to a true and deserving political community. By Loren Landau

In consideration of the number of women that are being unfairly discriminated against in terms of the City’s practice to transfer immovable property into the names of the male spouse in pursuance of an old policy, the Women's Legal Centre, funded by Heinrich Boell Stiftung, challenged this in the Western Cape High Court.

We need to understand what it means to be heterosexual as well as homosexual, and that our sexualities affect whether we live or die - During this 54th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women on the occasion of the 15+year review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform, the Coalition of African Lesbians (“CAL”) reinforces that:

While the issue of a Women’s Ministry was raised during the transitional phase it was never considered a viable option for the following reasons: limited success in terms of policy impact both in the West and in developing countries, and a dumping ground for all issues dealing with women.

In this publication, the Heinrich Böll Foundation presents some of its experiences, both setbacks and successes. It is just a small sample of HBS' work all over the world.  HBS is very much aware that its political and financial contributions are often only part of a larger network; yet its work does make a difference – for more gender justice.

This article attempts an analysis of Women’s Ministries (structures on the level of the executive) that are normally tasked with the implementation of policy and legislation. It does so by looking at the experience of Women’s Ministries in the north, as well as in Africa. It also reflects on the more recent histories in the north of the dismantling of gender machineries as a consequence of gender mainstreaming.