This shows the Mossel Bay Municipality's commitment to contributing towards achieving the targets of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) protocol on gender development.
Speaking before the signing ceremony, the Executive Mayor of Mossel Bay, Alderlady Marie Ferreira said despite the pledge women cannot expect preferential treatment. Women see themselves next to men as equal partners who demand and deserve respect and to be held in high esteem. Women should deserve positions awarded to them. She also urged men not to abuse women.
In reply, the ANC urged Council and the munisipality to take the pledge very seriously and to ensure a commitment to women empowerment.
Council has committed to completing all 10 stages of the Centre of Excellence process. They will ensure gender balance and sensitivity within Council and ensure that women in Council and in the community actively participate in decision-making processes.
Council will integrate gender into the planning, monitoring and evaluation systems of Council and ensure gender balance and sensitivity in the services delivered by Council.
They will also promote flagship programmes on gender violence and empower women on climate change, local economic development and care work.
A Gender Management System will be established, including human and financial resources for this purpose. The pledge also means that Council will allocate specific budgetary resources for promoting gender equality and ensure that both women and men equally benefit from all Council expenditure.
The pledge also requires Council to administer the Gender and Local Government Scorecard at least once a year to benchmark progress. Council will document in multi-media formats the difference that gender awareness makes to the work of Council. It will also be required to share good practices at the annual Gender Justice and Local Government Summit, and share experiences with, and assisting neighbouring councils that join the Centre of Excellence process.
Council, through signing the pledge, committed to the implementation of the Gender Five-Year Plan.
Mossel Bay's Municipal Council last week signed a pledge to commit to gender empowerment.
