Translating gender policies into practice in the Buffalo City and Amahlathi Local Municipalities

Abstract

Since the advent of democratic dispensation in 1994, the local sphere of government has had a significant role to play in the achievement of the South African government's goal of facilitating the social and economic development of communities. This development manifests itself in improving the lives of women, who have for the most part been excluded from taking part in the economy, politics and business. While accomplishments have been made in improving the lives of women post 1994, with reference to the increased participation and representation of women in all three spheres of government, the situation of women has degenerated especially in the local sphere. Women are threatened with problems such as gender-based violence, poverty, HIV and AIDS, the lack of provision of basic services, illiteracy and unemployment. This situation has drawn attention to analyse the issues municipalities are tackling in implementing government polices in their communities, in this research the policy that will be utilised is the Gender Policy Framework for Local Government Framework established to improve the lives of men and women. Challenges associated with implementing a gender policy are aligned with local government authorities making an allowance for gender as an auxiliary issue and not as precedence and the lack of capacity; financial, human resource and institutional in all municipalities in South Africa to implement gender policies. The premise of this research is to construct a comparative investigation of the progress that the Buffalo City and the Amahlathi Local Municipalities have made in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of the Gender Policy Framework for Local Government Framework.