The Legislative Sector has resolved to host an International Conference on Women towards the end of August 2017. This decision was made in Durban during a regular quarterly meeting of the Speakers’ Forum, a decision-making body that oversees management and coordination of legislative sector programmes.
The conference was suggested as a way of ensuring a comprehensive multisectoral contribution to South Africa’s country report to the 61st UN Commission on the Status of Women Conference scheduled to take place in 2018.
The Speaker of the National Assembly, Ms Baleka Mbete, had raised a concern that the current process towards compiling the country report excluded contributions of the legislative.
“It is only right that the country report must be processed through the legislative sector. The people’s representatives’ sit in Parliament and it will really be a country report if the legislative sector makes substantive contributions to the report,” Ms Mbete said.
Following a decision by the Speakers’ Forum earlier this year to move away from an event-based approach to sectoral parliaments, the conference will be used to intensify national and continental discussions on gender mainstreaming.
To facilitate these discussions, provincial legislatures will be expected to roll out a series of provincial workshops that will ensure that a diversity of voice and a range of constituents make a contribution to the country report.
To ensure impact of the conference to the lives of ordinary women, the forum has proposed that the resolutions of the conference must be referred to the Executive for implementation.
Malatswa Molepo
24 July 2017
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