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Oxfam GB Southern Africa commissioned a power analysis to identify key actors necessary to support efforts aimed at the ratification, domestication, and implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Africa Women’s Protocol) and the Abuja Declaration on Health (including HIV and AIDS). The power analysis contains a strategic analysis of key targets in the African Union and other inter-governmental organisations.

On 11 July 2003, the Heads of State and Government of the African Union adopted the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa. The Protocol is potentially a powerful force for positive change in the lives of African Women. However if this potential is to be realised, advocates for women’s rights and gender equality must take deliberate action to ensure its popularisation, ratification, domestication, implementation, and monitoring. With this in mind, Oxfam GB Southern Africa, commissioned a study to strengthen the popularisation and mobilisation campaign on the Protocol in 2004. The objectives of the study were to: make a comparative analysis of the Protocol and other relevant regional and international instruments as well as national legislation of the three countries to determine how the Protocol contributes to the existing framework for gender equality; analyse the national situation and the implications of the Protocol in the three countries in three thematic areas; identify challenges, best practices, and lessons learnt; make recommendations on popularising the Protocol and promoting its implementation. The study was conducted at national and regional level. The countries studied were Mozambique, South Africa, and Zambia. The methodology included a literature review, interviews, and questionnaires.

This paper illustrates how Oxfam GB Southern Africa supports the efforts of women’s-rights organisations to monitor the domestication and implementation of women’s human-rights instruments such as the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Africa Women’s Protocol) in Africa, using the example of the Africa Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Monitor (known as the Africa Gender Monitor or AGM).

This programme insights paper highlights some of the work supported by Oxfam GB Southern Africa to popularise and lobby for the ratification, domestication, and implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women (the Africa Women’s Protocol) in South Africa and Mozambique.

Oxfam’s mission is to work with others to overcome poverty and suffering. Our interpretation of poverty goes beyond lack of finances to encompass lack of capabilities, powerlessness, and inequality. Our fight to overcome poverty and suffering focuses on the right to a sustainable livelihood, water, education, health, protection and security, a voice in public life, and freedom from discrimination. The promotion of gender equality and women’s rights is therefore at the heart of our efforts. When the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women entered into force, it became a potentially effective tool for advancing the rights of African women. Unfortunately, unless people from all walks of life, including grassroots women, judges, police officers, government officials, and men and women’s rights advocates know about such instruments, their effectiveness will be grossly undermined. Every effort must be made to promote the popularisation, domestication, and implementation of the Protocol by encouraging effective partnerships between civil-society organisations (CSOs) and government institutions.

This paper illustrates one example of how Oxfam GB Southern Africa Region supports the efforts of women’s-rights organisations to popularise and lobby for the ratification, domestication, and implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Africa Women’s Protocol) in Zambia. It highlights some of the key challenges and successes encountered by women’s-rights organisations such as Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA – based in Lusaka, Zambia) that are related to drafting, popularising, domesticating, and implementing the Africa Women’s Protocol. It also highlights key strategies used by WLSA to popularise and lobby for improved legal and policy reforms. Some of the areas WLSA focuses on that are critical in the Africa Women’s Protocol are: HIV and AIDS, food security, sexual and reproductive health rights for women, and gender-based violence.

This series of programme insights papers highlights some of the work undertaken by Oxfam GB’s partners in Southern Africa to popularise and lobby for the ratification, domestication, and implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women (the Africa Women’s Protocol). Oxfam GB’s mission is to work with others to overcome poverty and suffering. Our interpretation of poverty goes beyond lack of finances to encompass lack of capabilities, powerlessness, and inequality. Our fight to overcome poverty and suffering focuses on the right to a sustainable livelihood, water, education, health, protection and security, a voice in public life, and freedom from discrimination. The promotion of gender equality and women’s rights is therefore at the heart of our efforts. The Africa Women’s Protocol is a key tool that legitimises the struggle for gender equality and women’s empowerment.