“GL [Gender Links] is a learning organisation and its achievements can be summarised by a culture of excellence, accountability, transparency and transformation. The organisation has effectively carried out its advocacy and lobbying and partnership management, working around and with Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development and related issues in the region.”  These are the words of a 2010 external evaluator commenting and commending the work of GL, a regional NGO based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Formed in March 2001, the organisation is working in 15 countries in the region to promote gender equality and justice. Its vision is to see a “region in which women and men are able to participate equally in all aspects of public and private life in accordance with the provisions of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development”.

The organisation also runs and owns the GL Cottages and e-shop that enables it to sustain some of its programmes that are facing financial challenges. The e-shop, officially launched on 8 March 2012 has publication produced by it over the years.

Recognising its numerous efforts aimed at empowering women, in 2009, GL received the “Top Gender Empowered Government Agency or Parastatal Award” from the Top Women Awards. GL has twice been a finalist in the “Drivers of Change Award – Civil Society Category” administered by the South African Mail and Guardian newspaper and the Southern African Trust (SAT).

Since its formation, GL has opened Francophone and Lusophone offices headquartered in Mauritius and Mozambique respectively. The offices target French and Portuguese speaking countries in the region. By February 2012, GL registered country offices in Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The organisation is yet to register offices in Swaziland and Madagascar.

GL began its work with a strong focus on “promoting gender equality in and through the media.” Over time, GL’s media focus has expanded to include gender and governance and Gender Justice.

Following the adoption of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development in 2008, GL consolidated its action plan into four areas: The Southern African Gender Protocol Alliance; Gender and the Media; Gender and Governance, gender and Media Diversity Centre and Gender Justice.

United we stand: The Southern African Gender Protocol Alliance

From 2005 to 2008, GL worked with civil society partners in the campaign to elevate the SADC Declaration on Gender and Development into a Protocol with 28 targets to be achieved by 2015. GL coordinates the Southern African Gender Protocol Alliance that brings together over 40 NGOs at national and regional level in six thematic clusters for advancing gender equality in the region.

As a coordinator, GL monitors the implementation of the provisions of the protocol annually and document progress and challenges in a publication titled SADC Gender Protocol Barometer. It also works with members of the alliance to popularise the protocol through village level workshops.
 
The Lion’s Den: Gender equality in and through the media

First chair of GL, Thenjiwe Mtintso, declared that the organisation would “meet the lion in its den” in its endeavours to transform gender relations “in and through the media.” Since 2001, the media has been a core pillar of GL’s work. There are four legs to gender and media work: research; advocacy, policy and training. The outputs are shared, and progress measured at the Gender and Media Awards that take place every two years.  

GL, in partnership with media development NGOs has initiated cutting edge research on gender and the media in Southern Africa, including the Gender and Media Baseline Study (GMBS) in 2003; Gender and Media Audience Study (GMAS) in 2004/2005 and the Gender, HIV/AIDS and Media Baseline Study in 2006, extended to Seychelles, the DRC and Madagascar in 2007/2008.  In 2009, GL completed research on Glass Ceilings in Southern African Media Houses before embarking on Gender and Media Progress Study, a follow up study to the GMBS.

Building on these research findings as well as three pilot projects to develop gender policies in newsrooms, GL managed the policy leg of the Media Action Plan (MAP) on HIV/AIDS and Gender led by the Southern African Editor’s Forum (SAEF).  By 2010 over 140 media of the targeted 180 media houses had adopted HIV and AIDS policies. GL is using the Glass Ceiling in Southern African Media Houses study to follow up with these media houses and persuade them to develop gender policies. GL is also working with media NGOS, regulators and self-regulators in developing gender policies, standards and codes of practice.

As a follow up to gender and media research, advocacy, training and policy work, GL has recently launched the media Centres of Excellence (COEs) in gender mainstreaming a thing the organisation has been conducting in the region since its formation.

GMDC: collecting, connecting and collaborating

In May 2007, GL, media NGOs and knowledge institutions launched the Gender and Media Diversity Centre whose vision is one of a “more representative, responsive, and professional media as well as citizens, women and men, who are empowered to engage critically with their media.” It comprises a physical and virtual resource centre through which research, contacts and publications are exchanged, and debates initiated. The centre runs monthly face to face and cyber dialogues on topical issues such as gender and xenophobia as well as other diversity concerns.

Under the GMDC, GL produces an average of ten Opinion and Commentary articles a month written by well-established as well as new writers. These are disseminated to the mainstream media across the region. GL has pioneered a special genre of “I” stories or firsthand accounts of women’s experiences of gender violence, living with AIDS, living in polygamous relationships and working in local government that have proved highly popular.

Making IT work for gender justice

GL has played a key role in placing the Sixteen Days of Activism campaign on the regional agenda through strategic communications training for activists that included using IT (the cyber dialogues) and mainstream media. This approach- strongly backed by the 2006 report of the UN Secretary General on violence against women and children across the globe – is being replicated across the region.

50/50 by 2015: Gender and governance

In 2004, GL conducted the seminal study, Ringing up the Changes: Gender in Southern African Politics, examining the impact of women in politics in SADC.  Two years later, the organisation extended the research to the participation of women in local government in a book called At the Coalface, Gender and Local Government. GL has extended this research and action planning work to eight SADC countries where the launch of the research is accompanied by national strategy and local level action plan workshops. In March 2010, GL held the first Gender Justice and Local Government (GJLG) summit that show cased over 100 good practices for ending gender violence at the local level.  Meanwhile, GL is preparing for 2012 summit after holding in-country summits in Botswana, Mauritius, Zambia and Zimbabwe. GL is now working with 100 Centres of Excellence for Gender Mainstreaming at the local level to ensure sustained support for change.   

GL services

GL leverages the research and training materials it has produced through providing advisory services in such areas as producing gender aware conference newspapers; institutional gender mainstreaming; strategic communication strategies; research and institutional support.  In 2010 GL became accredited as a training institution and in 2011, GL Training Institution (GTI) was consequently launched.  Since its establishment, GTI has helped to revise and develop a Namibian Gender Action Plan to support the implementation of the country’s Gender Policy. In November last year, GL helped Seychelles government to develop National Gender Policy. Meanwhile, GTI is in a process of developing Costed National Gender Action Plan for the country.

Way forward

Balancing a small organisation structures with growth of programmmes and budget is great strength of GL. The organisation has not become a huge monolithic structure but has remained small and focused in spite of the scope and intensity of work in the region. The organisation has coped by moving away from projects to programmes and through leveraging its work in order to reach a wider audience.

Gender Links: “a small organisation with large footprints”

For more about Gender Links, refer to www.genderlinks.org.za.