1. AFRICAN GENDER DEVELOPMENT INDEX (AGDI) SOUTH AFRICA COUNTRY REPORT
OVERVIEW OF FINDINGS
2017

2. CGE Mandate
The Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) is an independent statutory body established in terms of Section 181 of the Constitution of South Africa.
The mandate of the CGE is provided for in Section 187 of the Constitution and in the CGE Act of 1996 (as amended)
CGE is mandated to promote respect for, protect, develop and attain gender equality, and to make recommendations on any legislation affecting the status of women
Section 11 (h) of the CGE Act mandates the Commission to monitor and evaluate the implementation of international and regional conventions acceded to by South Africa, that impact on gender equality.

3. BACKGROUND
South African government has ratified a number of international and regional gender equality commitments.
This includes the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of all form of Discrimination of Violence Against Women ( ratified 1995), the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the 2008 SADC Protocol on Gender and Development
The aforementioned instruments were aimed at fast-tracking gender equality globally as the subject of gender inequalities is comprehensive and multi-dimensional.
These ratified instruments were then domesticated into laws by the government into policies with an aim to protect and promote gender equality.

4. BACKGROUND (Cont.)
The African Gender Development Index (AGDI) was developed in 2004 by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)
AGDI is a tool made up of two parts i.e. Gender Status Index (GSI)and African Women’s Progress Scorecard (AWPS).
The GSI, measures gender inequalities through the quantitative indicators
Education and Health, Income, Time Use, Employment, Access to resources, formal and informal political representation.

5. BACKGROUND (Cont.)
In terms of performance scoring for the GSI component, an assessment of female achievement as a ratio to male achievement is calculated using a number of specific indicators to obtain a score for female achievement as a ratio of male achievement total of 1. The closer the specific indicator score is to 1, the better the performance on gender equality by the country.
The AWPS, is used to measure the progress of women’s empowerment through a qualitative evaluation of implementation of the various treaties that South Africa ratified.

6. BACKGROUND (Cont.)
The scoring for progress on the AWPS is done on a three-point scale of between 0 and 2 where (0 indicates nothing done, 1 indicates poor to fair performance, and 2 indicates a good to excellent performance)
The first South African AGDI report was published in In 2012 the CGE agreed to work with UNECA to assess the progress made by South Africa in implementing the recommendations that were highlighted in the SA 2005 AGDI I report.

7. METHODOLOGY
A consultant was appointed to manage work and supervise the CGE research team.
The National Advisory Panel (NAP) was then set up, involving the following key stakeholders:
The Presidency, (DPME), Statistics SA, Department of Social Development, Department of Women, Civil Society Organisations i.e. (Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre, Sonke Gender Justice, Cosatu, Academia, South African Human Rights Commission, Independent Electoral Commission)
The NAP,CGE Management, research team members and the consultant were then trained by a gender expert from UNECA in South Africa on the AGDI.
Data was then collected through desktop, literature review and sourcing information from the government reports, annual reports, and from some of the NAP members.

8. LIMITATIONS
Lack of easily accessible sex- disaggregated official data for many of the indicators
Most of the departments plans lacked specifics i.e. budgets that were not gender sensitive, clear gender –related performance indicators, et.
Difficulties accessing relevant data on time from some government departments/ institutions

9. OVERVIEW OF THE FINDINGS
South Africa in the post-apartheid era continues to experience and display the gender divisions inherited together with other socio-economic, class and racial divisions, from the apartheid era.
Patriarchy continues to manifest itself in all spheres of spheres of life and serves to underpin some of the intractable socio-economic divisions in the different sectors, with women at the receiving end
The findings in this report reveal that African women in particular continue to face challenges in terms of gender based violence and sexual harassment in society, at work and at home.
Women continue to face economic disempowerment, high rates of unemployment and underemployment, pervasive poverty and political under-representation

10. OVERVIEW OF THE FINDINGS (Cont.)
This report further reveals that although there was progress in the enrolment of the girl-child at primary, secondary and high schools, this did not necessarily translate into high rates of representation in higher institutions of learning, including management.
Also, good performance of women in the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education does not necessarily translate into high paying position in the job market or leadership positions in the economic, politics and other key social institutions in society.
The study also reveals, unexpectedly, that increasing numbers of young boys are dropping out of high school in large numbers (especially between Grades 10 and 12). These increasing dropout rates for boys affect their rates of entry into institutions of higher education

11. GENDER STATUS INDEX (GSI) FINDINGS
EDUCATION
There is still a higher literacy rate among men; the dropout rate especially for black African boys in high school and the decreasing rate of boys’ enrolments in university and other higher education institutions.
The report revealed that drop out rates were higher for males than females beginning in Grade 6 for the years 2008 to 2010.
Enrolments for Grade R has doubled, increasing from to between , which nearly reached level of universal access to education.

12. GSI FINDINGS (Cont.) HEALTH
Stunting persists in South Africa as a challenge, 26 percent of boys and 25 percent of girls aged 0-5 years old fall into the category of stunted development.
The prevalence of HIV/AIDS among youths aged 15 to 24 indicates a higher rate for females (at 8.1 percent) compared to males (at 4.0 percent).
Over 25 percent of girls had had sex with older male partners, which places them at a greater risk of contracting HIV.

13. GSI FINDINGS (Cont.) ECONOMIC POWER
Women are overrepresented in the unskilled farm worker category as compared to the skilled farm worker category.
The share of females working within the informal and agriculture sectors declined by approximately 4.0 and 5.0 percentage points respectively.
Levels of unemployment increased by almost a quarter (24.1 percent), from 4.1 million unemployed persons in 2001 to 5.1 million in 2014 for both males and females.
Females aged years were most likely to be unemployed with an unemployment rate of 56.3 percent in 2014, and the largest increase observed between 2001 and 2014 (5.8 percentage points).

14. GSI FINDINGS (Cont.) ACCESS TO RESOURCES
The study revealed that women are still struggling to access socioeconomic resources, such as land, as compared to men. However data in this regard is limited.
Women’s access to credit demonstrated an improvement than other economic resources.

15. GSI FINDINGS (Cont.)
POLITICAL POWER
There was a three percent drop in women’s representation in the National Assembly from the 40 percent (159) achieved in 2014 to 43 percent (172) in the 2009 elections.
However there has been a steady increase in the number of women in Parliament since In 2003 the number was 32 percent, and continued to increase - in 2004 it was at 33 percent. The largest increase was in 2009 to 44 percent. However, the 2014 numbers dropped to percent.
Women are highly underrepresented in the judicial system, of the 239 judges appointed in the Superior Courts, male judges represent 66 percent (158) while female judges represent 34 percent (81).

16. AFRICAN WOMEN’S PROGRESS SCORECARD (AWPS) FINDINGS
This component measures qualitative assessments in relation to government’s performance in implementing the provisions of the instruments through domestic gender policies, programs and related activities.
South Africa ratified instruments that are key in leading for gender equality (to mention a few)
The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
• Article 2 – Equality

17. AWPS FINDINGS (Cont.)
• Article 16 –Equality in Marriage and Family Life
• Optional Protocol to CEDAW
• Beijing Platform for Action
• Protocol on the Suppression and Punishment of Trafficking in Persons Especially in Women and Children
• Convention on the Rights of the Child

18. AWPS FINDINGS (Cont.) Areas of good performance:
The country is performing well in terms of the ratification, reporting, promulgation of laws, developing policies and involvement of civil society.
Progress report revealed that gender policies and gender related legislation during the past two decades.
South Africa has performed satisfactorily in terms of involving and consulting with civil society organisations on issues related to gender mainstreaming.
There was therefore, generally, plenty of political willingness in the country to push and drive the gender agenda at the highest political levels.

19. AWPS (Cont.) Area of poor performance
In terms of the following Indicators of performance (Monitoring and evaluation, information dissemination, capacity development and accountability), the study found that the country’s performance was generally poor/less than satisfactorily.
The country achieved consistently low scores of between 0 and 1 in terms of performance in these indicators. The challenge therefore is clearly in the area of capacity to implement government policies, programmes and plans relating to promoting gender equality/transformation.
There was, generally, a failure by government to allocate budgetary resources to programmes and plans to ensure compliance with relevant gender instruments
There was also poor performance in areas such as effective dissemination of information related to promoting gender equality and the rights of women to improve the knowledge and ability of women to claim their rights and access to related vital services.

20. AWPS (Cont.) Area of poor performance
Poor budgetary resource allocation and lack of skilled human resources exacerbates state capacity to implement gender policies effectively.
The country appears to comply easily with the technical requirements for signing up to and ratifying the instruments. However it appears to struggles in terms of reporting consistently, regularly and timeously as required by the treaty bodies.
The country’s second periodic reporting in 2015 (on the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights) combined reports for several reporting periods (i.e. third, fourth and fifth) into one report. This is not ideal.

21. CONCLUSIONS
These findings show that the country still has work to do in various areas of where progress was assessed in compliance with key international instruments (in terms of the GSI and AWPS components of the study)
Patriarchy and male dominance remain important factors in accounting for lack of progress in the development and advancement of women in various spheres of society and sectors of society.
Research shows that black women in particular are negatively affected in all spheres of life as a result of the multiple burdens of their social positioning.

22. CONCLUSIONS (Cont.)
This report further revealed that employment and leadership statistics is dominated by men especially in the wage paying jobs, high paying jobs, managerial/ decision making positions are more than women.
Violence in South Africa threatens the fabric of democracy, as it is a human problem that affects communities and the broader society.

23. POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
This report shows that the country performed satisfactorily mainly on those indicators where political commitment was required and easily provided, but performed less so on those indicators where political commitment on paper still needs to be translated into administrative and operational commitment in practice. Policy makers should therefore place greater emphasis on translation policy intentions into practical outcomes.
It is recommended that greater resources (i.e. institutional, skills and financial) be devoted towards closing the current gap between policy commitments on paper and practical outcomes on the ground to meet the country’s global and regional gender mainstreaming obligations. This gap between policy and outcomes appears to be compounded by the voluntary nature of these commitments, lacking enforcement and punitive sanctions for poor compliance.

24. POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
It is recommended that the South African government, working closely with institutions such as the CGE and others within the National Gender Machinery (NGM), should prioritised the development of effective mechanisms and processes for ensuring the country’s compliance with, and accountability for, the implementation of the provisions of the various ratified global and continental/ regional instruments t o which the country is signatory.

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