Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in any area and at all levels. It is a strategy for making the concerns and experiences of women as well as of men an integral part of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres, so that women and men benefit equally, and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal of mainstreaming is to achieve gender equality. This work explores the experiences of Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia from Eastern Africa; and Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Swaziland from Southern Africa. All cases show the varied attempts to mainstream gender at national, institutional, and civil society levels, including grassroots experiences.

Africa has witnessed massive changes in the last fifty years – from independence through structural adjustment, rule by military juntas in several countries and to a period now where the focus is on how best to prioritize their needs based on resources, national goals and human potential. There is general agreement that human capital is important in economic growth and development. There is always the need to ensure that resources and human capital are used appropriately to advance development. Gender disparities, whether in treatment, access to resources, resource utilization and the law, may in themselves retard or slow down development. Resources and human potential in all societies include how best to ensure there is no gender disparity and to fully tap the resources inherent in women for personal, social and national development. Beginning with the women’s suffrage movement, there has been the push to encourage gender equality worldwide. The Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 embodies the commitment of the international community to implement policies that will enhance the political, social, economic, educational empowerment of women. This book highlights the issues affecting women in Eastern and Southern Africa – what role does custom and patriarchy play in gender disparities in education, access to health, problems in the workplace and family relationships? How have women writers in the last twenty years presented the issues of patriarchy, women’s rights, globalism and women’s holistic development? What are recent developments that have helped improve the situation for some women? These are some of the issues that are covered in this book. The thesis of this book is that there have been policies and strategies developed that have worked to empower women. However, vestiges of sexism, gender disparities in several fields still remain and traditions/customs and patriarchy have aided in still keeping women down.div“/div>

The constitutional and legislative framework within the Southern African Development Community provides a positive institutional environment to ensure mainstreaming gender concerns. However, the translation and implementation of the gender perspective is at times lacking. Both agenda setting as an instrument of change management and reorganisation procedures are not used enough in the fields of economy, organisation and health. These three areas are crucial partly due to their interconnectivity and also because of their vital importance to the successful sustainable development of SADC nation. This volume results from the findings of a conference hosted by the Institute of Women and Gender Studies, Kiel, and the Institute for Women's and Gender Studies, Pretoria.